Market rally continues

The markets opened on a strong note on Tuesday, as the Sensex scaled the 19k mark for the first time in two months.

An uptrend was observed through the day so far, with the Sensex touching a peak of 19,196 a little after noon, encouraged by positive global cues.

During the late noon  session, the bourses were trading firmly in positive territory.

At close, the bourses pared their late noon gains to end higher than the previous close; the Sensex ended at 19,121 up 178 points, while the Nifty closed at 5,736 up 49 points.

Today is the sixth consecutive day the markets lodged straight gains of 1,300 points, or 7.2%, with robust buying seen in the auto, teck and metal counters.

Worldwide too, the markets were on an upswing owing to bargain buys, and sobering oil prices, after the Japanese disaster of March 11 rattled investor sentiment globally.

Reliance Communications advanced 4% on the Sensex to end at Rs 110, followed by Maruti Suzuki at Rs 1,245, alos up 4%, and DLF at Rs 255 up 3%.

Bharti Airtel ay Rs 358 up 3% and Tata Power at Rs 1,329 up 2% were the other major gainers on the benchmark today.Sterlite Industries, HDFC, Tata Motors, Hero Honda and Reliance Infra were all up 2%.

Conversely, BHEL and ICICI Bank were the only stocks in the red on the benchmark index.

BHEL at Rs 2,067 was off 1.5%, while ICICI Bank at Rs 1,099 was flat, but with a negative bias.

The broader markets underperformed today, with the Mid-cap index at 6,748, flat with a negative bias, while the Small-cap index was down 0.4% at 7,976.

Among the small-cap stocks, Accentia Technologies touched its lower circuit at Rs 92 down 20% today, while Ushdev International was down 8% at Rs 328 and Vikas WSP was down 7% at Rs 18.

Auto stocks were in top gear today, and the index zipped ahead by 2% at 9,135.

Top gainers in this lot were Maruti Suzuki at Rs 1,245 up 4%, Exide Industries at Rs 140 up 3% and Tata Motors at Rs 1,245 up 2%.

Hero Honda gained 2% at Rs 1,530 after the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs met on Tuesday to discuss the Hero Group's fund raising of Rs 4,500 crore (Rs 45 billion) for funding the buyout of its erstwhile partner Honda's stake.

Mahindra & Mahindra also advanced 2% to Rs 689.

The Teck index advanced 1% to 3,785. Deccan Chronicles at Rs 83 was the major gainer in this space, followed by MphasiS at Rs 425, both up 6%, and Relaince Communciations at Rs 110 up 4%.

Metals also shone on Tuesday, and the index gained 1% at 15.969. Sesa Goa led the gains at Rs 288 up 5%, followed by Jindal Saw at Rs 196 and Hindustan Zinc at Rs 141 both up 3%. Sterlite Industries and Jindal Steel were up 2% each.

The Capital Goods index ended flat at 13,187, while the FMCG and PSU indices gained marginally at 3,554 and 8,830 respectively.