Northbound journey continues, Sensex up 164pts

The markets continue northbound journey for the seventh straight day this morning. The Sensex has gained 164 points at 19,107, and has rallied over 7% (1,268 points) in the above mentioned period.

The NSE Nifty is up 40 points at 5728.

Year-end buying by institutional houses coupled with lack of major negative triggers in the markets is driving the rally.

Today, Reliance Communications, Hero Honda and Sesa Goa are the major gainers up around 3% each.

Bharti Airtel, Tata Power, Dr.Reddy's, TCS, Reliance Infrastructure, Axis Bank and Larsen & Toubro are the other major gainers.

Banking stocks have led the rally for quite some time now. The Bank Nifty is up 63 points at 11,586. Banking majors - Axis Bank and SBI are the top gainers followed by Oriental Bank of Commerce, Punjab National Bank, Union Bank of India and HDFC Bank.

Realty stocks however are seeing some kind of profit taking. The CNX Realty index has slipped 1% to 294.

Parsvnath has plunged nearly 5% to Rs 45. IRB Realestate, Godrej Properties, Unitech and Anant Raj Industries are the other major losers. DB Realty, however, has zoomed nearly 19% to Rs 99.

On the other hand, infrastructure related stocks continue to shine on the bourses for yet another day. The CNX Infra has surged over 1% to 3054.

Telecom majors Reliance Communications and Bharti Airtel are leading the up move followed by Tata Power and Idea Cellular. Reliance Infrastructure, Larsen & Toubro, GMR Infra, Suzlon and NTPC are the other major gainers.