After starting the day on a quite note, the Sensex swung in and out of the positive zone in morning trades before surging to new highs. The index opened a tad (four points) higher at 16,352, slipped to a low of 16,308, but rebounded later on the back of fresh buying in select heavyweights.
The buying gained momentum in late noon trades and the index rallied to a fresh all-time intra-day high of 16,617 - up 308 points from the day's low.
The Sensex finally ended with a gain of 216 points at 16,564. The NSE Nifty ended at 4,838, up 90 points.
The BSE Oil & Gas index soared 3.5% to 9340. The Realty index surged 1.5% to 9183, and the Auto index gained 1% at 5193.
The market breadth was negative - out of 2,843 stocks traded, 1,629 declined, 1,166 advanced and 48 were unchanged on Friday.
Index Movers...
Reliance zoomed 3.8% (Rs 82) to Rs 2,274. Bharti Airtel soared 3% to Rs 918, and SBI surged 2.8% to Rs 1,808.
Reliance Communications, Reliance Energy, Grasim, Hindustan Unilever, Maruti and ONGC rallied 2% each to Rs 579, Rs 1,010, Rs 3,447, Rs 219, Rs 930 and Rs 923,
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