Sensex starts 2010 with near 100-pt gain

Markets today gained around 100 points on positive cues from the global markets and a strong auto, cement and steel sales in December 2009.

The first trading day of the year saw the Sensex opening marginally higher at 17,473. The index slipped into red to a low of 17,378, but soon bounced back into the positive zone. The index thereafter displayed firm trend and touched a high of 17,583 - up 205 points from the day's low.

The Sensex finally ended the first day of this new calendar year, which also is the first trading day with new market timings (0900-1530 hrs) with a gain of 97 points at Rs 17,562.

The Nifty ended up 31 points at 5,232.

Auto and cement stocks were the big gainers today. ACC jumped 5% to Rs 914. Grasim was up 2.7% at Rs 2,545.

Mahindra & Mahindra surged 4.5% to Rs 1,130. Tata Motors gained 4.3% to a new 52-week high of Rs 827 on a spurt in December sales.

Jaiprakash Associates rallied 4.7% to Rs 154. Reliance Infrastructure was up 2% at Rs 1,171.

Metal stocks moved up. Tata Steel added 2.6% to Rs 634. Sterlite and Hindalco advanced 1.5% each to Rs 875 and Rs 163, respectively.

However, NTPC slipped 1.6% to Rs 232 on profit taking. Reliance declined 1.2% to Rs 1,075 after a block deal in morning trades.

Bharti Airtel, Maruti Suzuki and HDFC was marginally down.

The BSE market breadth was positive. Out of 2,947 stocks traded, 2,135 have advanced while 745 have declined.

The BSE mid-cap and small-caps out-performed the broader markets and gained 1.6% each at 6,826 and 8,494, respectively.

Value & volume toppers:

Reliance topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 1,463.65 crore, followed by JSW Energy (Rs 357.98 crore), Onmobile Global (Rs 149.45 crore), Tata Steel (Rs 117.52 crore) and Tata Motors (Rs 108.41 crore).

The volume chart was led by JSW Energy with trades of over 35 million shares, followed by Reliance (14.09 million), FCS Software (13.16 million), Sanraa Media (11.46 million) and IFCI (11.08 million).