The Sensex opened at 14,300, up 80 points from the previous day's close. Backed by sustained fund buying influenced by firming global trend the index displayed strength in morning trades.
However, the index dipped into red (14,197) for a brief while in noon deals only to bounce back to higher levels. The index rallied to a high of 14,450 - up 253 points from the day's low - in late noon trades.
The Sensex finally ended with a gain of 202 points at 14,422.
The NSE Nifty ended with a gain of 64 points at 4,316.
The market breadth was positive - out of 2,698 stocks traded, 1,483 advanced, 1,143 declined and 72 were unchanged on Thursday.
INDEX MOVERS. . .
Ambuja Cements zoomed over 5% to Rs 87. Wipro rallied over 4.5% to Rs 477. Cipla surged 4% to Rs 216.
Reliance gained nearly 4% at Rs 2,219.
ITC, Tata Motors and Larsen & Toubro were up around 2% each at Rs 191, Rs 485 and Rs 2,360, respectively.
Satyam, too, advanced nearly 2% to Rs 453. Infosys, Tata Steel and SBI added 1.5% each to Rs 1,775, Rs 754 and Rs 1,221, respectively.
HDFC was up 1.4% to Rs 2,200.
. . .AND THE SHAKERS
Reliance Communications slipped 2.6% to Rs 490. Maruti shed 2.4% at Rs 670.
Hindalco and Ranbaxy declined around 2% each to Rs 142 and Rs 530, respectively.
DLF and Hindustan Unilever dropped 1.8% each to Rs 442 and Rs 208, respectively.
Bharti Airtel dipped 1.6% to Rs 755. HDFC Bank was down 1.4% to Rs 1,042, and NTPC was down 1% at Rs 152.
MOST ACTIVE COUNTERS
Reliance topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 559.63 crore followed by Reliance Capital (Rs 268.69 crore), Niraj Cement (Rs 231.14 crore), Chambal Fertilisers (Rs 177.12 crore) and Anu Labs (Rs 168.20 crore).
Chambal Fertilisers led the volume chart with trades of around 2.18 crore shares followed by Nagarjuna Fertilisers (1.32 crore), Reliance Natural Resources (Rs 1.17 crore), Niraj Cement (1.09 crore) and IFCI (1 crore).
