Sensex closes 200 pts up, records second consecutive gain

Mumbai, July 26: A strong first quarter result from the index heavyweight ONGC and Bharti Airtel boosted the BSE sensitive index (Sensex) to swing 286 points, touching an intra-day high of 10,648.77 points to close 200 points above the previous close.

The Sensex today closed at 10,617.27 after opening 50 points in the green earlier in the morning.

Initially the July futures option which is coming to close on July 27 weighed on the index performance, however this was cordoned off well by the investors, leading to a jumpstart later in the mid-morning session.

All the BSE sectoral indices today closed in the green, even the Banking index which seemed to be riling under the pressure of interest rate hike by RBI mangaed to recover losses and closed at 0.89 per cent in the green.

All other sectors led by FMCG was up by 2.67 per cent and followed by PSU, Teck and smallcap grew by 2.54, 2.66 and 2.35 per cent, respectively.

Major gainers on the index were Ranbaxy up by 4.24 per cent to Rs 371.45, ONGC up by 4.08 per cent to Rs 1138.25, Tata Motors up 3.87 per cent to Rs 728.80, Reliance communications up by 3.77 per cent to Rs 257.60, Bharti Airtel up by 3.68 per cent to Rs 382.90, HDFC up by 3.30 per cent to Rs 1133.55, Maruti Udyog up by 3.30 per cent to Rs 764.35, HLL up by 2,82 per cent to Rs 240.95 per cent, Hindalco up by 2.76 per cent to Rs 162.10 and ITC up by 2.50 per cent to Rs 167.95.

Besides, the losers were - Hero Honda up 1.14 per cent to Rs 703.30, and ICICI up by 0.16 per cent to Rs 540.25.

The breadth in the broader market was in the favour of 1686 advances as against 705 declines out of 2467 scrips traded on the BSE today.

UNI