Sell-off towards close, but Sensex ends up 47pts

The Sensex opened with a significant positive gap of 53 points, and soon crossed its crucial resistance of 10,940. All-round buying in the market saw the index rally to a high of 11,082.

However, profit taking at higher levels saw the index wipe out all its gains and sink to a low of 10,876 - down 206 points from the day's high. The Sensex finally settled with a gain of 47 points at 10,923.

While the Small-cap index advanced 1.2% to 5239, the Mid-cap index was up nearly 1% at 4374.

The market breadth was fairly positive - out of 2,540 stocks traded, 1,523 advanced, 940 declined and the rest were unchanged today.

INDEX MOVERS & SHAKERS

Ranbaxy, based on the Lipitor ruling, soared nearly 4% to Rs 392. HDFC rallied 3% to Rs 1,226.

HDFC Bank, Grasim and Reliance Communications surged nearly 2% each to Rs 794, Rs 2,117 and Rs 271, respectively.

Bajaj Auto, Tata Motors and ICICI Bank advanced 1.5% each to Rs 2,581, Rs 769 and Rs 556, respectively.

Bharti, Maruti, Wipro and Satyam were up over 1% each at Rs 399, Rs 789, Rs 508 and Rs 763, respectively.

BHEL and HLL shed around 1.5% each to Rs 2,119 and Rs 225, respectively. ITC slipped 1% to Rs 172.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Reliance topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 199.70 crore followed by Infosys (Rs 110 crore), SBI (Rs 96.53 crore), Tata Steel (Rs 76.40 crore) and Reliance Communications (Rs 70.79 crore).

Balrampur Chini led the volume chart with trades of around 60.75 lakh shares followed by Aftek Infosys (36.51 lakh), G V Films (27.85 lakh), Dhampur Sugar (26.81 lakh) and Reliance Communications (26 lakh).