Markets have a field day

The benchmark indices surged more than a per cent on positive global cues. The Sensex ended at 16922, higher by 264 points and the Nifty ended at 5078, up 78 points.

The midcap index ended at 6865, higher by 74 points and the smallcap index ended at 8599, up 107 points. All the sectoral indices ended in the green, with auto, metal and realty being the main drivers.

The markets had opened firm, spent time in consolidation mode throughout the morning session and took off thereafter on the back of positive Asian and European markets, in a mirror image of Wednesday's sesson. But the similarities end there.

For while the bourses were afflicted by a sudden bout of volatility in the second half of the previous session, there were no such hiccups on this day.

Meanwhile, the food inflation rose 16.74% in the year to May 29, while the fuel price index climbed 14.23%, according to government data.

The pace of increase in food prices accelerated from the previous week's annual rise of 16.55% and fuel price inflation quickened from the previous week's 14.14%.

Reliance Infra ended higher by 5% at Rs 1122 to emerge as the leading gainer on the BSE. Bharti Airtel was in the limelight for the second consecutive day, surging by 4.8% at Rs 285.

Following the completion of its Zain deal, the country's largest mobile telecom service provider has now announced a tie-up with VMware. Bharti Airtel has partnered with VMware to expand its managed computing services, which will help in reducing the total cost of ownership for customers looking to transit to next-generation data center architectures.

The auto pack saw huge buying action. Tata Motors soared by 4.3% at Rs 759, Hero Honda strengthened by 4.1% at Rs 2006 and Maruti added 3.3% at Rs 1345.

Hindalco strengthened by 4.1% at Rs 138, Jindal Steel added 2% at Rs 628 and Tata Steel added 1.8% at Rs 470. And DLF has added 1.7% at Rs 262.

In the midcap space, Pipavav Shipyard, Pantaloon Retail and Bombay Rayon added more than 5% each at Rs 92, Rs 409 and Rs 232 respectively.

And the smallcap index saw the likes of Shristi Infrastructure, Tata Metaliks and MSP Steel touching the upper circuit of 20% each.

ICICI Bank was the only loser among the BSE-50 scrips, shedding 0.2% at Rs 1188.

The market breadth was strong. Out of 2914 stocks traded on the BSE, there were 1841 advancing stocks as against 888 declines.

SBI topped the value charts on the BSE with a total turnover of Rs 179.09 crore. This was followed by Tata Steel (Rs 117.49 crore), Tata Motors (Rs 93.54 crore), Bharti Airtel (Rs 73.19 crore) and Reliance Infra (Rs 72.18 crore).

Hindalco led the volume charts with trades of 8.73 million. It was followed by RCom (5.56 million), Tata Steel (3.54 million), Bharti Airtel (2.80 million) and DLF (2.43 million).