The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 53 points at 14,964, and the mood stayed bullish right through the session on buying in power, metal and banking stocks.
The index zoomed to a high of 15,112 in late noon deals before closing with a gain of 181 points at 15,092. The NSE Nifty ended at 4,446, up 59 points.
The BSE Metal index zoomed over 3% (370 points) to 11,475. The BSE Realty, Auto, Bankex and Capital Goods indices also finished with sharp gains on Thursday.
The market breadth was bullish -- out of 2,713 scrips traded, 1,790 logged gains.
Index Gainers and Losers
Hindalco zoomed over 7% to Rs 166. Reliance Energy gained nearly 7% to Rs 668.
BHEL moved up over 4% to Rs 1,641.
HDFC Bank and Reliance Communications added over 4% each at Rs 1,201 and Rs 561, respectively. Bajaj added over 3% at Rs 2,195.
M&M, Maruti, Tata Steel and HDFC also finished with gains on Thursday.
ONGC dropped nearly 1% to Rs 893. Infosys and Wipro declined marginally to Rs 1,922 and Rs 480, respectively.
Infra, Metal Stocks Sizzle
GMR Infra zoomed nearly 14% to Rs 952. Lanco Infrastructure gained 9% to Rs 252. Alstom Projects advanced 7% to Rs 882. Reliance Industrial Infrastructure gained 10% at Rs 558.
Sterlite gained over 5% at Rs 642. SAIL advanced nearly 5% to Rs 144. Tata Steel was up over 2% at Rs 672.
Most Active Counters
GMR Infrastructure was the most active counter with a turnover of Rs 454 crore followed by DLF (Rs 228 crore), Time Technoplast (Rs 148 crore), Reliance Energy (Rs 133 crore) and Unitech (Rs 118 crore).