Buoyed by yesterday's strong close, the Sensex today resumed with a positive gap of 15 points at 5,135. Strong gains in most of the counters saw the market remain firm in the opening session.
Buying gained momentum in mid-noon trades as sharp rally in select heavyweight, auto, cement and other old economy stocks lifted the index to an intra-day high of 5,201.
The Sensex, however, on profit-taking in select stocks towards the fag-end, slightly came off from its intra-day highs, and ended the session with a gain of 50 points at 5,170. The Nifty also ended firm with a gain of 13 points at 1,632.
While 19 Sensex stocks advanced 11 declined today. Advancing shares accounted for a volume of 1.65 crore amounting to Rs 736.80 crore, and declining shares registered a volume of 1.23 crore for Rs 408.47 crore.
Reliance attracted considerable buying support today, and advanced 3% (Rs 15) to Rs 489. While ITC was down a per cent (Rs 11) at Rs 1,35, HLL, after its weak Q1 numbers announced yesterday, was down 1.69% (Rs 2) at Rs 116.
Infosys moved up 1.31% (Rs 20) to Rs 1,554. While Satyam gained 1.57% (Rs 5) to Rs 339, Wipro clocked a per cent gain (Rs 5) to Rs 547.
Tata Motors surged 4.38% (Rs 18) to Rs 423. While Hero Honda added 2.72% (Rs 11) to Rs 429, Maruti logged nearly 2% gains (Rs 8) to Rs 425. Bajaj was up 1.16% (Rs 9) at Rs 822.
Grasim added 1.69% (Rs 16) to Rs 981. While Gujarat Ambuja gained 2.66% (Rs 7) to Rs 278, ACC rose 2.35% (Rs 5) to Rs 240.
ONGC gained 1.25% (Rs 9) to Rs 716. BHEL was up 1.28% (Rs 7) at Rs 545. SBI, however, was down a per cent (Rs 4) at Rs 442.
Hindalco spurted 3.40% (Rs 36) to Rs 1,101. Tata Power moved up 2.46% (Rs 6) to Rs 264. Zee, however, lost 2% (Rs 3) to Rs 140.
