The Sensex on Friday opened up 76 points at 11,949 on the back of positive global cues. The market refrained from it's usual volatility and displayed sideways movement for most part of the trading day.

The index, in the last hour, surged to a high of 12,220, up 347 points. The Sensex finally ended at 12,173 -- up 301 points - a day ahead of the election results.

The NSE Nifty ended at 3,672, up 78 points.

INDEX MOVERS..

Ranbaxy zoomed 8.5% to Rs200. ICICI Bank soared 7% to Rs 574. Grasim surged 5% to Rs 1,882.

Bharti Airtel has rallied 4.7% to Rs 800. Larsen & Toubro and TCS have gained 4% each at Rs 988 and Rs 646, respectively.

HDFC and Wipro have advanced 3.7% each to Rs 1,940 and Rs 378. DLF, SBI, ACC and Reliance Communications have added 3.5% each.

Jaiprakash Associates, Tata Steel, Tata Power, BHEL, Sun Pharma, Sterlite, Reliance and Tata Motors were up 2-3% each.

...AND SHAKER

ONGC shed 2.5% at Rs 813.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Aban Offshore topped the value chart with a total turnover of over Rs 430 crore on the BSE on Friday. It was followed by Cairn India (Rs 382.70 crore), ICICI Bank (Rs 214.69 crore), DLF (Rs 185.20 crore) and Reliance (Rs 173.89 crore).

The volume chart was led by Cairn India with over 19 million shares traded today. This was followed by Unitech (17.14 million), Suzlon (11.43 million), Reliance Natural Resources (8.08 million) and Aban Offshore (7.34 million).