BSE Sensex surges 893.58 points to close at 19,929.06 points

Mumbai: The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) posted its highest intraday gain, even as the Sensex ended up 4.7 per cent amidst short-covering on the bourses and positive global signals.

The BSE 30-share Sensex ended at 19,929.06, up 893.58 points or 4.7 per cent from Tuesday, after surging 5 per cent in the last few minutes of trading. It touched a low of 19,336.96 and a high of 19,987.71 intraday.

The National Stock Exchange''s 50-share Nifty closed at 5,937.90, up 242.50 points or 4.3 per cent. It moved between 5,700.05 and 5,950.20 intraday.

The gains were led by shares of banks and oil and gas companies, with State Bank of India rising 3 per cent to Rs2,354 on reports of its rights issue plan. ICICI Bank ended 9 per cent up at Rs1,279, while HDFC Bank closed at Rs1,752, up 11 per cent.

CNX Midcap Index and S&P CNX 500 Index ended up by three per cent and four per cent respectively.

The BSE Oil & Gas index surged seven per cent, led by gains in Reliance Industries, up seven per cent at Rs 2,888, and Oil and Natural Gas, up five per cent at Rs1,236. The combined turnover on BSE and NSE was Rs29,313 crore, up from Rs27,571 crore on Tuesday.

The Metal index surged 4.16 per cent. National Aluminium rose 14 per cent to Rs421 as market expected aluminium and alumina prices to stabilise.

Hindalco was up seven per cent at Rs218. The company has announced a hike in prices of its aluminium products by Rs2,000 a tonne. Sterlite Industries rose four per cent to Rs1,012 after copper''s gains on the London Metal Exchange.

Information technology shares led by bellwether Infosys Technologies, bounced back from recent losses and posted handsome gains. The BSE IT and Teck indices climbed up 4.51 per cent and 3.83 per cent respectivey.

The auto, capital goods, power, realty and PSU indices advanced by two per cent to four per cent while the FMCG and healthcare indices firmed up by 1.53 per cent and 1.64 per cent respectively.

Larsen & Toubro shed some gains on profit taking, but still ended with a handsome gain of 2.85 per cent. ITC (2.75 per cent), Reliance Communications (2.45 per cent), State Bank of India (2.2 per cent), Tata Motors (2.1 per cent), NTPC (1.85 per cent), ACC (1.6 per cent) and Mahindra & Mahindra (1.05 per cent) also ended on a firm note.

Ranbaxy Laboratories, Dr. Reddy''s Laboratories, Cipla, Ambuja Cements, Bajaj Auto and Hindustan Unilever ended marginally higher than their previous closing levels.

Punjab National Bank, VSNL, Siemens, Sun Pharmaceuticals and SAIL gained 6 per cent to 10 per cent. MTNL, Tata Power, Sterlite Industries, Zee Entertainment, Unitech, HCL Technologies, GAIL India, GlaxoSmithKline Pharma, ABB, Suzlon Energy and Hero Honda also closed with impressive gains.