Sensex rallies nearly 200pts; banking, IT stocks lead

Mirroring positive cues from the US markets, the Sensex opened with a positive gap of 147 points at 13,007, but soon slipped into the negative zone to a low of 12,697 - down 310 points from the day's open.

The index, however, rebounded into the positive zone on the back of fresh buying in banking and technology stocks. The index rallied to a high of 13,204 - up 507 points from the day's low.

The Sensex, however, pared gains towards the close and finally ended with a gain of 195 points at 13,056.

The BSE IT index soared 4% (123 points) to 3,218, and the Bankex rallied over 3% (209 points) to 6,688. The Realty index, however, shed 2.3% (82 points) at 3,427.

The market breadth was positive - out of 2,672 stocks traded, 1,476 advanced, 1,120 declined and 76 were unchanged today.

INDEX MOVERS...

Satyam zoomed 7.5% to Rs 319. Jaiprakash Associates soared 7% to Rs 119.

HDFC Bank rallied 5.3% to Rs 1,294. Grasim and Tata Power surged around 4.5% each to Rs 1,766 and Rs 947, respectively.

Infosys gained 4% at Rs 1,454. ICICI Bank, Tata Steel and HDFC advanced 3% each to Rs 551, Rs 439 and Rs 2,204, respectively.

Reliance Communications and Wipro moved up 2.8% each to Rs 343 and Rs 349, respectively.

ACC and SBI added 2.5% each to Rs 627 and Rs 1,501, respectively. ITC gained 2.3% at Rs 192.

Ranbaxy and Maruti were up 1.5% each at Rs 252 and Rs 698, respectively.

...AND THE SHAKERS

DLF and Reliance shed 2% each at Rs 345 and Rs 1,907, respectively.

Tata Motors slipped 1.5% to Rs 339, and Reliance Infrastructure declined over 1% to Rs 782.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Reliance Capital topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 400.40 crore followed by Reliance (Rs 280.40 crore), ICICI Bank (Rs 246.35 crore), Axis Bank (Rs 235.25 crore) and SBI (Rs 178 crore).

Reliance Natural Resources led the volume chart with trades of around 1.24 crore shares followed by IFCI (81.85 lakh), Jaiprakash Associates (71.50 lakh), Chambal Fertilisers (55.85 lakh) and Ispat Industries (49.60 lakh).