Sensex in upward swing, closes above 12,500 mark

Mumbai, May 9: The BSE Sensex maintained its upward momentum today and closed above the 12,500 mark at 12,513.86, with a gain of 51.39 points.

The 30-share Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Sensitive Index (Sensex) today touched a new high of 12,546.47 points, as it swung 190 points in the intra-day trade, touching a low of 12,356.04.

In the morning, Sensex opened 16 points up at 12,488, as compared to the last close of 12,462 points and soon went past the 12,500 mark.

Foreign fund outflow data did shake the markets in the morning as the foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were sellers by Rs 540 crores in F&O (Futures&Options) trade.

The National Stock Exchange (NSE) S&P CNX Nifty index closed up by 27 points at 3,720 points.

ONGC crossed Rs two lakh crore market capitalisation for the first time today. The scrip touched a high of Rs 1,450 and closed finally at Rs 1,439.85 with a gain of 4.42 per cent or Rs 4.42.

All the sectoral indices had a wild swing due to volatile trading, the BSE FMCG index finally ended 0.77 per cent lower and the healthcare index, too, lost 0.34 per cent.

All other sectors closed in the green, with the BSE auto index closing 1.70 per cent up, smallcap index up by 1.12 per cent, bankex index up by 0.80 per cent and oil and gas index up by 0.74 per cent. The BSE midcap index was up by 0.42 per cent.

The top gainers were - ONGC, Maruti, Tata Steel, Tata Motors, SBI, Larsen&Toubro (L&T), Bajaj Auto, HDFC, Reliance Energy and Satyam Computers.

UNI