Sensex up 250pts; ITC gains 6%

Fresh buying in FMCG, IT and metal stocks helped the index rebound into the positive zone, the index touched a high of 16,563 - up 345 points from day's low (16,218) in the late noon deals.

The Sensex finally ended with a gain of 250 points at 16,525.

The market breadth was neutral - out of 2,756 stocks traded, 1,312 advanced, 1,358 declined and 86 were unchanged today.

The NSE Nifty moved up 58 points to close at 4,918.

INDEX MOVERS...

Ambuja Cements soared 6.7% to Rs 104. ITC surged 6.2% to Rs 222, and Hindalco gained 6% to Rs 196.

TCS advanced 4.5% to Rs 1,010. Tata Steel moved up 4% at Rs 903.

SBI and Satyam surged over 3% each to Rs 1,519 and Rs 514, respectively.

Wipro gained around 4% to Rs 506. Jaiprakash Associates was up 2.6% to Rs 229.

Bharti Airtel and Hindustan Unilever moved up 2.5% each to Rs 885 and Rs 238, respectively.

ACC was up 2% to Rs 669. Maruti and Infosys were up around 2% to Rs 778 and Rs 1,913, respectively.

Grasim was trading at 2,238 - up 1.7%.

HDFC Bank added 1.5% to Rs 1,352. Cipla and Tata Motors were up 1.3% each to Rs 208 and Rs 635, respectively.

DLF, Reliance and Reliance Infrastructure were the other major gainers.

AND THE SHAKERS...

BHEL tumbled 2.8% to Rs 1,612. Larsen & Toubro was down 1.2% at Rs 2,709.

ONGC slipped 1.1% at Rs 874, while Mahindra and Mahindra declined 0.5% to Rs 642.

MOST ACTIVE COUNTERS

Chambal Fertilisers led the value chart with a turnover of Rs 291.49 crore followed by Bajaj Finserv (Rs 235.93 crore), Reliance (Rs 190.18 crore), Reliance Capital (165.28 crore) and Reliance Power (Rs 131.39 crore).

Chambal Fertilisers, also, topped the volume chart with trades of around 3.48 crore shares followed by Nagarjuna Fertilisers (1.86 crore), Ispat Industries (1.35 crore), IFCI (1.23 crore) and Spice Telecom (1.14 crore).