Sensex ends up 44.54 pts, closes at 16,783

Mumbai, Apr 22: The benchmark Sensex of the Bombay Stock Exchange today gained a modest 44.54 points to close the session at 16,783.87, amidst bouts of volatility. After resuming the day with a negative gap of 52.78 points at 16,686.55, the Sensex further slipped to a day's low at 16,597.53, lost 141.80 points on fresh profit booking interest in early trade.

However, it recovered early losses and gained 114.63 points at day's high of 16,853.96 hit in early-afternoon trade and finally ended comfortably in green, marked by a sixth straight day of gain, stock brokers said adding that fresh buying in realty and capital goods stocks helped the index rebound into the positive zone.

IT stocks today tumbled after TCS results disappointed the investors.

The broader based S&P CNX Nifty index of National Stock Exchange closed 12.30 points up at 5,049.30. The BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices closed with a marginal gains at 7,037.62 and 8,798.08 respectively and outperformed the Sensex.

The market breadth was positive on BSE as 1563 shares advanced against 1127 that declined and 57 remained unchanged. The total turnover at BSE was Rs 6,125 crore against Rs 5,883.10 crore in the previous session. Turnover in NSE's futures&options segment amounted to Rs 51643.74 crore as compared to Rs 40635.23 crore earlier.

Index heavyweight HDFC surged 3.7 pc to Rs 2,577, HDFC Bank advanced 3 pc to Rs 1,488, ICICI Bank moved up over 2 pc to Rs 882, Larsen&Toubro gained 2.6 pc to Rs 2,921 and DLF rallied 3.5 pc to Rs 674. BHEL and Jaiprakash Associates soared 5.5 pc each to Rs 1,872 and Rs 246, respectively.

ACC, ONGC and Cipla gained 2.3 per cent each at Rs 819, Rs 1,054 and Rs 231, respectively.

However, IT major TCS slumped 10.94 pc to Rs 884 on 8 lakh shares after the company reported 5.95 pc fall in net profit to Rs 1108.81 crore for its fourth quarter ended March 31, 2008. It was the top loser from the Sensex pack.

Other IT scrips, including Infosys, was down 2.42 pc to Rs 1605.30, Wipro was down 4.11 pc to Rs 435 and Satyam Computer Services plunged 5.44 pc to Rs 434.

Ranbaxy ended down 2.4 pc to Rs 487 while Grasim, Maruti and Mahindra&Mahindra dropped over 1.5 pc each to Rs 2,600, Rs 754 and Rs 629, respectively. Reliance and Reliance Communications lost over one per cent each to Rs 2,607 and Rs 553, respectively.

UNI