Mirroring strength in the global markets the Sensex opened with a positive gap of 40 points at 14,451. Steady buying, mainly in auto, telecom and financial stocks, saw the index rally to a high of 14,574 - up 163 points from the previous close.
The index exhibited some volatility towards the close on account of the futures & option expiry of the May series. However, the Sensex eventually ended on a firm note at 14,544 - up 133 points.
The BSE Auto, Bankex and FMCG indices moved up 1.3% each to 5012, 7607 and 1907, respectively.
The NSE Nifty hit a fresh all-time intra-day high of 4307, and settled at a record 4296 - up 46 points.
The market breadth was positive - out of 2,564 stocks traded, 1,333 advanced, 1,153 declined and 78 were unchanged today.
Financials lead
Hero Honda zoomed 5% to Rs 733, and HDFC Bank soared 4% to Rs 1,149.
Maruti surged 2.6% to Rs 824. HDFC, HLL, SBI, Tata Motors and Bharti Airtel rallied around 2% each to Rs 1,871, Rs 203, Rs 1,353, Rs 758 and Rs 848, respectively.
Wipro moved up 1.6% to Rs 545. Cipla added 1.4% to Rs 218.
Bajaj Auto, Satyam and Reliance Energy were up 1% each at Rs 2,224, Rs 470 and Rs 540, respectively.
BHEL went ex-bonus (1:1) today. The stock opened at Rs 1,400, slipped to a low of Rs 1,351, and then rallied to a high of Rs 1,435, before settling at Rs 1,380.
Gujarat Ambuja shed 1.7% to Rs 113, and NTPC slipped 1% to Rs 158.
Value & volume toppers
MIC Electronics topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 252.30 crore followed by India Infoline (Rs 112.60 crore), Unitech (Rs 103.35 crore), Reliance (Rs 103 crore) and SBI (Rs 83.30 crore).
Reliance Natural led the volume chart with trades of around 1.55 crore shares followed by MIC Electronics (65.20 lakh), Insecticides India (58.80), Srei Infra (54.70 lakh) and Reliance Petro (46.65 lakh).