The Hindu Business Line : Sensex up 174 points

The BSE Sensex ended in positive territory on Monday, after witnessing intra-day highs and lows. The index gained momentum in the last hour of trading to end at 10,684.30 points, up by 174.77 points or 1.66 per cent.

The Nifty closed at 3,142.00 points, up by 2.15 per cent.

Short covering here and firm Asian markets drove shares up.

Buying was largely in frontline stocks. Bharti Airtel was the biggest gainer (up by 5.14 per cent), followed by Wipro Ltd (up by 4.98 per cent) and ONGC (up by 3.48 per cent).

BSE IT was the biggest gainer among the sectoral indices at 3,821.52 points, up by 3.23 per cent. Shares of Wipro Ltd, Infosys Technologies Ltd, TCS and Satyam Computers moved up ahead of the result announcements next week.

BSE Teck index gained 3.18 per cent to close at 2,553.61 points.

BSE Bankex lost 13.53 points to close at 4,354.59 points, down by 0.31 per cent. ICICI Bank Ltd and HDFC Bank Ltd were the top losers for the day, down by 1.28 per cent and 0.76 per cent respectively.

The overall market breadth was slightly negative with 1,307 scrips declining and 1,037 scrips advancing.

"The overall volume was much better than Friday after rumours about the PM's resignation were denied," said a dealer.

FIIs were net sellers to the tune of Rs 102.19 crore according to the provisional figures on the NSE. However they have been net buyers for of July.