Markets surge on short-covering

Heavy short-covering owing to the derivatives expiry today, saw the markets surge towards the end of the day.

The Sensex today opened in the red at 15,169 and slipped further to a low of 15,065. The index, however, rebounded on positive global cues. The index soared 345 points from the low to a high of 15,410 near the end of the day.

The Sensex finally ended at 15,388 - up 214 points.

The BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices were underperfomers and gained 29 points and 49 points, respectively.

The BSE IT, FMCG and Bankex added around 2.5% each.

The Nifty, meanwhile, ended with a gain of 58 points at 4,571. The index today surged to a high of 4,582 - up 107 points from the low of 4,475.

The markets have ended in the positive zone for the first time in the week.

The market breadth was fairly positive. out of 2,758 stocks traded 1,503 advanced while 1,170 declined on the BSE.

INDEX MOVERS...

TCS surged 6% to Rs 530. Hindustan Unilever rallied 5% to Rs 282.

Wipro and HDFC gained 4.5% each at Rs 489 and Rs 2,465, respectively.

SBI added 4% to Rs 1,723. ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank moved up 3-4% each.

Tata Steel, ITC, ACC, Larsen & Toubro, Reliance Infrastructure, Jaiprakash Associates, NTPC, Infosys and Mahindra & Mahindra were the other major gainers.

In Nifty, SAIL and Ambuja Cement added 4.5% each to Rs 176 and Rs 104, respectively. BPCL, Gail India and Tata Communications also added around 3%.

...AND THE SHAKERS

Sun Pharma could not recover from the negative zone and ended down 3.5% at Rs 1,145.

BHEL and Reliance dropped 1.5% each to Rs 2,203 and Rs 1,900, respectively.

Among the other Nifty 50 stocks, Punjab National Bank tumbled 6% to Rs 705. Jindal Steel, Nalco, ABB and Cairn India dropped 1-3% each.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Tata Steel topped the combined value chart with a turnover of Rs 1,109.88 crore, followed by Sterlite (Rs 880.69 crore), HDIL (Rs 799.98 crore), Unitech (Rs 776.38 crore) and ICICI Bank (Rs 758.79 crore).

The combined volume chart was led by Unitech with trades of nearly 85 million shares, followed by Suzlon (62.51 million), Ispat Industries (46.06 million), Mahindra Satyam (37.77 million) and Reliance Natural Resources (33.73 million).