Sensex gains 117.08 pts amid high volatility

Mumbai, Feb 21: The sensitive index, after moving between positive and negative gaps, today climbed up 117.08 points on the Bombay Stock Exchange to close at 17,734.68 on bouts of alternate selling and buying amid high volatility.

Resuming the day with a positive gap of 207.62 points at 17,825, the benchmark Sensex touched the day's high at 17,911.66 on fresh buyings in early trade. Later, it slipped into the red in late afternoon trade to touch a day's low at 17,482.31 on offloading of shares. However, the market barometer smartly recovered the losses and ultimately ended on positive sentiments in late trade.

Meanwhile, the broader based Nifty touched a high of 5,241.35 and a low of 5,120.05, before closing the session positively at 5,191.66, and gained 37.35 points in late trade.

Except bank and consumer goods, all the indices ended the day in green on the BSE sectoral index. Bank stocks were the worst hit today as most of the bank and financial institutional shares came down by four to five per cent. Market breadth was strong and the turnover surged in last hour of trade, amounting to Rs 5383 crore on BSE.

The market staged a strong rebound in late trade to wipe off the losses and post a modest gain on firm cues in Asian and European markets. Nevertheless, the market witnessed a high volatile session today, brokers said.

State-owned Bank of Baroda, Punjab National Bank, Union Bank of India and Canara Bank ended down by 4.5 to 5 per cent. Private sector lender HDFC came down 3.5 per cent, while ICICI was down by 1.97 per cent. However, LIC housing finance gained 5 per cent.

The BSE Mid-Cap index was up 1.05 pc to 7,668.93 and Small cap rose marginally to 9,692.99, outperforming the Sensex. Turnover on NSE futures&options segment amounted to Rs 43409.74 crore as compared to Rs 43987.02 crore yesterday.

Software shares surged on fresh buying and metal shares advanced tracking firm global metal prices. Infosys Technologies was up 4.56 pc to Rs 1639.70, TCS by 4.64 pc to Rs 925 and Wipro was up by 5.76 pc to Rs 435.

Reliance Industries (RIL) staged a sharp recovery from day's low of Rs 2458.50. It ended the day 0.84 pc higher at Rs 2503 on 5 lakh shares. Bajaj Auto rose 2.76 pc to Rs 2404, while Maruti Suzuki India was down 0.35 pc to Rs 766. Bharat Heavy Electricals was down 1.19pc to Rs 2099 and Grasim was down 0.59pc to Rs 2820.

Larsen&Toubro declined 0.68 pc to Rs 3439 even as the company today said it has bagged an order from Cairn India for laying crude oil insulated pipeline and gas pipeline from Barmer, Rajasthan, to Salaya, Gujarat.

Reliance Power gained 3.67 pc to Rs 423.20 on volumes of 57.38 lakh shares.

UNI