Sensex regains 17K; realty, metals lead

The Sensex on Monday opened at 16,893 mirroring strong cues from the Asian markets. The index soon crossed the psychological 17,000 mark and continued to exhibit firm trend throughout the day.

Firm opening of the European bourses and higher US index futures also helped the Sensex towards the end. The Sensex finally ended at 17,032, up 184 points or 1%. The NSE Nifty ended at 5,058, up 59 points.

All the sectoral indices barring the IT index ended in green. The rally was led by realty and auto indices were up 3%, respectively.

INDEX MOVERS...

Among the BSE-30 stocks, Maruti zoomed 5.5% to Rs 1,560. DLF added 4.5% at Rs 385 and Hero Honda was up 4% at Rs 1,639, respectively.

Sterlite, Reliance Communications, Tata Steel, Hindalco and Tata Motors advanced 2-3.5% each at Rs 867, Rs 179, Rs 535, Rs 132 and Rs 634, respectively.

The other prominent gainers were Hindustan Unilever, Grasim Industries, SBI, Mahindra & Mahindra, Sun Pharma, Reliance and ONGC were firm.

...AND THE LOSERS

The IT stocks were the only losers for the day, TCS, slipped 0.5% to Rs 666 and Infosys was down 0.3%.

The market breadth was fairly positive, out of 2,864 shares traded, 1,758 advanced and 1,017 declined on the BSE.