Comeback, and How!

After a subdued trend in the last few sessions, the market staged a solid comeback today. The bulls were back in action after closing flat yesterday. Taking lead from buoyant international markets, the Sensex started the day at 13,764 (448 points above its previous close) on the back of strong buying in heavyweights, realty, information technology, Teck, oil & gas, power and banking stocks. At its day's high of 14,097 by afternoon, the Sensex closed the session 726 points higher at 14,042 and Nifty advanced 207 points to close at 4,245.

The market breadth was highly positive, Of the 2,700 stocks traded on the BSE, where 1,888 stocks advanced only 740 stocks declined. 72 stocks ended unchanged. All the sectoral indices notched up significant gains. BSE Realty index was the biggest gainer and soared 7.59% followed by BSE IT index (up 6.67%), BSE Teck index (up 5.86%), BSE Oil & Gas index (up 5.52%), BSE Power index (up 5.16%), BSE Bankex (up 5.03%) and the BSE CD index (up 4.72%).

Barring few, all the stocks in the Sensex basket ended at higher levels. Satyam Computer Services led the upsurge and flared 10.48% at Rs370.10. Among the other major gainers ICICI Bank surged 9.07% at Rs628.10, HDFC Bank moved up by 8.32% at Rs2308.45 and Tata Power advanced 8.30% at Rs1,027.30. DLF vaulted 7.78% at Rs426.90, ONGC shot up by 7.30% at Rs1072.10, Infosys Technologies added 6.59% at Rs1,623.85 and Tata Consultancy Services rose 6.37% at Rs766. However, HDFC Bank, BHEL, Reliance Industries, Jaiprakash Associates and Reliance Communications ended with gains of over 4-5% each.

Realty stocks were the stars of the day. Ansal Properties & Infrastruture soared 18.36% at Rs89.95, Indiabulls Realestate jumped 17% at Rs224.05, Akruti City added 11.52% at Rs908.20 and Peninsula Land gained 5.65% at Rs50.50.

Over 1.48 crore JP Associates shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Reliance Natural Resources (1.33 crore shares), IFCI (1.27 crore shares), Sesa Goa (1.12 crore shares) and Kohinoor Broadcasting Corporation (0.75 crore shares).