The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 67 points at 14,498. Fresh buying in morning trades saw the index rally to a high of 14,537. The index, thereafter, moved in an extremely narrow band of 30-odd points (14,470 to 14,500).

Selective buying towards the end of the day saw the Sensex settle with a gain of 74 points at 14,505.

The market breadth was positive - out of 2,655 stocks traded, 1,440 advanced, 1,143 declined and 72 were unchanged today.

CONCRETE GAINS

ACC zoomed over 8% to Rs 899. Ambuja Cements soared 7.5% to Rs 125, and Grasim [Get Quote] surged nearly 5% to Rs 2,624.

HDFC [Get Quote] rallied 5% to Rs 1,958. SBI [Get Quote] and Ranbaxy [Get Quote] advanced around 1.5% each to Rs 1,470 and Rs 348, respectively.

ITC and Wipro [Get Quote] were up 1% each at Rs 155 and Rs 515, respectively.

Bajaj Auto [Get Quote] and ONGC [Get Quote] slipped 1.7% each to Rs 2,094 and Rs 906, respectively.

Tata Motors [Get Quote] and Cipla declined over 1% each to Rs 664 and Rs 203, respectively. Reliance Communications [Get Quote] was down 1% at Rs 510.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

IFCI topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 137.50 crore followed by debutant Meghmani Organics (Rs 133 crore), Reliance (Rs 110.30 crore), SBI (Rs 108.50 crore) and Orbit Corporation [Get Quote] (Rs 89.75 crore).

Meghmani Organics led the volume chart with trades of around 4.72 crore shares followed by IFCI (2.54 crore), Reliance Natural [Get Quote] (1.34 crore), IKF Technologies [Get Quote] (1.04 crore) and Reliance Petro (77.50 lakh).

The NSE Nifty ended 18 points up at 4,282.