Markets do a volte-face

After being halted in their tracks in the past two weeks, the bulls came back with a vengeance. The Nifty ended the day well above the 4,700 mark and the Sensex closed just shy of the 16,000 mark, with the realty, metal and IT stocks leading the way. In the process, the markets more than made up for the previous day's losses. The Sensex ended at 15,912, stronger by 507 points or 3% and the Nifty ended at 4711, up 147 points.

The Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had allayed fears of curbing capital inflows. The Asian bourses did well. Moreover, the European markets are trading firm and the Dow futures are also exhibiting strength, ahead of the Fed's policy statement scheduled later in the day.

Reliance alone catapulted the Sensex by more than 113 points. Infosys contributed 64 points and ICICI was responsible for a 60-points appreciation on the benchmark.

The stocks in the limelight were Jaiprakash Associates (stronger by 9% at Rs 212), Hindalco (higher by 9% at Rs 119) and DLF (up 8% at Rs 365). Sterlite gained 6% at Rs 770, Reliance added 5% at Rs 1840 nad Tata Steel put on 5% at Rs 1,920.

Sun Pharma, Grasim and Tata Power were laggards, shedding up to 1% at Rs 1,375, Rs 2,167 and Rs 1,307 respectively.

The market breadth was strong. Out of 2778 stocks traded on the BSE there were 1770 advancing stocks as against 950 declines.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

State Bank of India topped the value charts with a turnover of Rs 202.38 crore, followed by Reliance (Rs 196.96 crore), Suzlon (Rs 183.03 crore), Tata Steel (Rs 174.20 crore) and Educomp (Rs 170.16 crore).

Suzlon led the volume charts with trades of 32.70 million shares, followed by Unitech (17.94 million), Reliance Natural Resources (10.59 million), Ispat (8.07 million) and Indiabulls Power (8.06 million).