The Sensex, after a weak opening of 19 points at 5,649, recovered soon to remain firm thereafter on bullish sentiment through the session.
After crossing the 5,700 mark in the opening session, steady buying in most of the sectors kept the index at higher levels till mid-noon deals. The markets, however, gained momentum towards the closing hours as unprecedented buying across-the-board triggered the rally which saw the index zoom past the 5,800 mark to touch a high of 5,832.
The Sensex ended the session with a huge gain of 156 points at 5,823. The Nifty also notched up significant gains to end 2.91% higher (up 53 points) at 1,853.
While 28 Sensex stocks advanced two declined today. Advancing shares registered a volume of 3.09 crore for Rs 1,350.72 crore, and declining shares accounted for a volume of 13 lakh amounting to Rs 74.28 crore.
ITC accelerated by 3.75% (Rs 41) to Rs 1,141. Reliance advanced 2.35% (Rs 13) to Rs 568. HLL, however, ended marginally lower at Rs 174.
SBI (up Rs 16 or 2.69% to Rs 601), BHEL (up Rs 18 or 3% to Rs 599), HPCL (up Rs 18 or 4% to Rs 473) and MTNL (up Rs 5 or 3.85% to Rs 142) ended on a buoyant note.
Infosys ended with a steep gain of 4.94% (Rs 250) to Rs 5,322. While Wipro ascended by 2.85% (Rs 42) to Rs 1,499, Satyam gained 3.36% (Rs 10) to Rs 320.
Grasim spurted 6.19% (Rs 66) to Rs 1,137. L&T notched up 4.48% gains (Rs 25) to Rs 588. While Gujarat Ambuja added 1.78% (Rs 5) to Rs 314, ACC gained 1.62% (Rs 4) to Rs 264.
Hero Honda soared 4.94% (Rs 24) to Rs 517. While Bajaj advanced 2.47% (Rs 22) to Rs 929, Tata Motors added 2.67% (Rs 14) to Rs 524.
ONGC at Rs 760 (up Rs 42 or 5.88%), Hindalco at Rs 1,272 (up Rs 22 or 1.805). Reliance Energy at Rs 775 (up Rs 32 or 4.34%), HDFC at Rs 640 (up Rs 30 or 4.94%), ICICI Bank at Rs 282 (up Rs 10 or 3.70%) and Tisco at Rs 436 (up Rs 7 or 1.55%) flared up on steep buying support.
Bharti Tele, on an unabated buying support, shot up 14% (Rs 20) to Rs 163. Tata Power jumped 4.53% (Rs 16) to Rs 363.
Ranbaxy added 2% (Rs 19) to rs 959. Cipla clocked a per cent gain (Rs 10) to Rs 1,205. Dr. Reddy's, however, remained weak through the session on sustained selling pressure, and plunged 18.13% (Rs 225) to close at Rs 1,015.