Fifth straight gain for Sensex; Ranbaxy shines

The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 28 points at 11,735. After advancing slightly higher the index slipped into the negative zone to touch a low of 11,643 owing to selling pressure at higher levels.

The index, however, rebounded into the positive zone on the back of fresh buying in select old economy heavyweights. The index touched a high of 11,756 - up 113 points from the day's low.

In the process, the Sensex finally setlled with a gain of 17 points at 11,724. The index has moved up 2.8% (316 points) in the last five trading sessions.

The BSE Metal index dropped over 2% to 8222.

The market breadth was negative - out of 2,608 stocks traded, 1,471 declined, 1,068 advanced and the rest were unchanged today.

INDEX MOVERS & SHAKERS

Ranbaxy rallied over 2% to Rs 405 following a favourable verdict from the Norway court against Pfizer in the two more Atorvastatin patent cases.
Grasim and ITC surged over 1.5% each to Rs 2,260 and Rs 187, respectively.

SBI, ACC, Reliance, Dr.Reddy's, HDFC and Tata Motors advanced 1% each to Rs 932, Rs 923, Rs 1,129, Rs 719, Rs 1,302 and Rs 853, respectively.

Tata Steel, Reliance Energy and NTPC dropped 2% each to Rs 507, Rs 440 and Rs 125, respectively.

Reliance Communications slipped 1.5% to Rs 305. Hindalco and Bajaj Auto declined over 1% each to Rs 173 and Rs 2,685, respectively.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Reliance topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 136 crore followed by Tata Steel (Rs 77.20 crore), Tech Mahindra (Rs 64.75 crore), Sterlite Optical (Rs 56.21 crore) and Indiabulls (Rs 51.90 crore).

G V Films led the volume chart with trades of around 61.40 lakh shares followed by Sterlite Optical (31.41 lakh), SpiceJet (29.80 lakh), Indian Asian Fusegear (25.50 lakh) and Srei Infrastructure (25.30 lakh).