Sensex rises 100 pts; banks, capital goods, Reliance lead

The BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty went up over 0.5% amid volatility, led by buying interest in banks, capital goods, healthcare and metals stocks. Index heavyweight Reliance Industries too helped the recovery, rising 0.4%. However, auto stocks were under pressure.

The BSE benchmark rose 115.58 points or 0.7% to 16,331.42 and the NSE benchmark gained 30.65 points or 0.62% at 4,938.45 despite fall in Asian markets. Shanghai and Nikkei dropped 0.9% each while Hang Seng rose 0.5%.

Back home, country's largest engineering and construction firm by sales Larsen & Toubro surged 5% on account of strong growth expectations. Company sees 15-20% growth in topline and order inflows for FY13. State-owned BHEL moved up 1.2%.

India's largest lenders State Bank of India and ICICI Bank jumped 0.7% and 1%, respectively. Software services providers Infosys and Wipro gained 1.2% each.

Healthcare stocks saw buying interest - Cipla and Sun Pharma climbed 1.5-2%.

However, shares of Tata Motors, NTPC, M&M, Maruti, ONGC, Coal India and Sterlite were down 0.5-2%.

IVRCL rose nearly 2% as the company received orders worth Rs 652.6 crore from Andhra Pradesh government and Power Grid Corporation.

Orchid Chemical was the most active stock today on the BSE with 11,76,121 equity shares, which crashed over 10% due to disappointing results in Q4FY12. Yesterday it had lost 13%.

Declining shares outnumbered advancing by 1112 to 981 on the BSE.

In the second line shares, Redington, Bajaj Electricals, Amtek Auto, Welspun Corp and Indraprastha Gas gained 2.5-3% while Himadri Chemical, Pantaloon Retail (ahead of quarterly results today), S Mobility, Abbott India and IRB Infrastructure dropped 3-5.5%.