The Sensex on Monday opened at 17,694 tracking firm global cues. The benchmark index exhibited steady movement owing to buying in the realty, auto and oil& gas sectors.

The Sensex surged to its highest level in 25 months in the late noon trades on the back of some fresh buying activity being witnessed at the pivotals.

The Sensex finally ended firm at 17,935, up 243 points. The NSE Nifty closed 78 points higher at 5,368. 

The BSE midcap and the smallcap indices outperformed the broader index, up 1.5% and 2%, respectively.

Emami zoomed 9% to Rs 684 and Allahabad Bank advanced 6%, respectively on the midcap index.

Apar Industries,English Indian and Shree Ram Mills sky-rocketed 20% each on the smallcap index.

The market breadth was straong, out of 2,916 shares traded, 2,223 advanced and 638 declined  on the BSE.

Among the sectoral indices, realty, oil&gas and auto indices gained over 2% each on the BSE.

Bajaj Auto rallied 6% to Rs 2,115, after the company announced it sales target of four million vehicles in FY2011. It was followed by Escorts and Hero Honda, up 4-5% each.

INDEX GAINERS. . .

Reliance Infrastructure surged 5% to Rs 1,067. It was followed by Bharti Airtel, Hero Honda and Tata Steel, up 4% each at Rs 315, Rs 2,033 and Rs 678, respectively.

DLF, ICICI Bank, Reliance Indusries, Mahindra & Mahindra and Sun Pharma were the other prominent gainers, up 2-3% each.

. . .AND THE LOSERS

Hindustan Unilever and Grasim Industries slipped 1% each to  Rs 228 and Rs 2,806, respectively.

TCS, Larsen & Toubro and ITC were down 0.5% each.