The market was jittery in the opening session. The Sensex, which opened 13 points higher at 5,083, soon eased on selling pressure to touch a low of 5,051.
After bouncing back into the green, the market moved with steady gains till mid-noon deals. The market witnessed a sharp upsurge towards the last half-an-hour of the trading session, as unabated buying in PSU, heavyweight and tech stocks lifted the index to an intra-day high of 5,134.
The Sensex finally wrapped up the session with a gain of 50 points at 5,120. The Nifty gained 25 points to close at 1,619.
While 24 Sensex stocks advanced, six declined today. Advancing shares recorded a volume of 2 crore amounting to Rs 862.16 crore, and declining shares accounted for a volume of 87 lakh for Rs 283.88 crore.
PSU frontliners rallied sharply on the back of strong buying support.
ONGC appreciated by 3.45% (Rs 24) to Rs 707. SBI advanced 2.91% (Rs 13) to Rs 446. BHEL soared 4.46% (Rs 23) to Rs 538. While HPCL gained nearly 2% (Rs 5) to Rs 317, MTNL was up 1.68% (Rs 2) at Rs 130.
Heavyweight's finished on a decent note. ITC shrugged off its bearish trend towards the fag-end, and closed up a per cent (Rs 11) at Rs 1,046. While Reliance, too, ended with a per cent gain (Rs 4) at Rs 474, HLL, however, on disappointing Q1 numbers, dropped 3% (Rs 4) to Rs 118.
While tech pivotals attracted decent buying support, pharma stocks finished on a divergent note. Infosys notched up 1.70% gains (Rs 26) to Rs 1,534. While Wipro garnered 2.73% gains (Rs 14) to Rs 541, Satyam added 1.27% (Rs 4) to Rs 334.
Dr. Reddy's mopped up 3.53% gains (Rs 26) to Rs 771. While Cipla scaled up 3.47% (Rs 8) to Rs 250, Ranbaxy, however, tumbled nearly 2% (Rs 19) to Rs 952.
Tisco logged 3.85% gains (Rs 15) to Rs 393. ICICI Bank moved up 2.34% (Rs 6) to Rs 264. While Tata Power added 1.56% (Rs 4) to Rs 258, Hindalco clocked a per cent gain (Rs 6) to Rs 1,065.
While cement stocks ended with marginal gains, auto majors, however, were largely weak today.