The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 75 points at 15,061, and then did not bother to look back. Fresh buying in morning trades saw the index rally to a high of 15,236 -- up 250 points from the previous close.

The index, thereafter, pared gains and exhibited range-bound movement for rest of the trading day. The Sensex finally ended with a gain of 153 points at 15,138. The NSE Nifty ended at 4,402, up 46 points.

The BSE Realty index surged over 2% to 7618. The Auto, Bankex, FMCG and Metal indices rallied over 1% each to 4797, 8048, 1957 and 11,325, respectively.

The market breadth was fairly positive - out of 2,607 stocks traded, 1,538 have advanced, 1,000 declined and 69 were unchanged on Friday.

Index Movers....

SBI [Get Quote] soared 2.7% to Rs 1,636. NTPC, HDFC [Get Quote] and ACC have rallied over 2% each to Rs 166, Rs 1,989 and Rs 1,003, respectively.

Grasim [Get Quote] and Hindalco [Get Quote] have surged 1.8% each to Rs 2,961 and Rs 162, respectively.

Tata Steel [Get Quote], Maruti [Get Quote], ICICI Bank [Get Quote] and Bajaj Auto [Get Quote] have advanced 1.6% each to Rs 650, Rs 850, Rs 915 and Rs 2,330, respectively.

Hindustan Unilever and Wipro [Get Quote] have gained 1.5% each at Rs 205 and Rs 469, respectively.

Larsen and Toubro, BHEL and Satyam [Get Quote] have advanced 1.3% each to Rs 2,521, Rs 1,720 and Rs 472, respectively.

ONGC [Get Quote], Infosys [Get Quote], Reliance Communications [Get Quote] and ITC were up 1% each to Rs 885, Rs 1,919, Rs 548 and Rs 169, respectively.

...And The Shakers

Ranbaxy [Get Quote] and Dr Reddy's have shed 1.4% each to Rs 366 and Rs 623, respectively. Ambuja Cements is down 1% at Rs 129.

Value and Volume Toppers

Reliance topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 193.50 crore followed by debutant Simplex Projects (Rs 188.20 crore), IFCI (Rs 158.50 crore), GMR Infrastructure [Get Quote] (Rs 154.50 crore) and Unitech (Rs 147 crore).

IFCI led the volume chart with trades of around 2.67 crore shares followed by Reliance Natural Resources [Get Quote] (83.80 lakh), Simplex Projects (67.20 lakh), Reliance Petro (42.30 lakh) and Mangalore Chemicals (38.30 lakh).