7:30AM NY-6:30PM Mumbai Sensex soars 249 points in a large-cap rally.

The Sensex on BSE advanced Thursday 248.96 points, or 1.63%, and settled at 15,550.13.

The market opened 56 points higher at 15,357, which was also the intra-day low. Steady buying in large-cap stocks especially in the latter part of trading saw the market surge to an intra-day high of 15,593.

The market-breadth was fairly positive as there were three advancers for every two decliners. As 1,503 stocks advanced, 1,104 declined and 70 were unchanged. Of the 30 stocks in the Sensex, only four declined while 25 advanced and one was unchanged.

The turnover on BSE was Rs 5,699 crore, compared with Rs 5,750 crore on Wednesday. On NSE, turnover was Rs 11,591 crore, slightly higher than Rs 11,318 crore on Wednesday.

Economic news

The Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said in an interview yesterday that India must keep its strict monetary policy in order to curb inflation. Indian bonds declined the most in more than a month after the Finance minister’s word as bond dealers in India had been expecting hoping interest rates to fall after inflation dipped to near a 13-month low.

Trading highlights

Spice was the most active stock with a turnover of Rs 695 crore followed by DLF and Zee Entertainment.

Advancers of the Day

Tata Motors advanced 4.7% to Rs 778 and led the gainers as on fading concerns of interest-rate increases. Auto companies take 50%-75% of their sales from borrowed funds. Reportedly, Tata Motors is considering a bid for luxury British car brands Jaguar and Land Rover from US car maker Ford. Bajaj Auto also gained over 4% to Rs 2,382.

Index heavy, Reliance Industries surged 4.2% to Rs 1,896 on a court decision from the Bombay High Court, which on Wednesday, July 18 J 2007, repealed a decision to forbid Reliance Industries to sell gas from its KG basin field to any other firm except Anil Ambani''s Reliance Natural Resources and state-run NTPC.

Cement stocks were boosted by the infrastructure boom. Grasim 3.5% to Rs 2,996. Other cement shares also advanced. JK Lakshmi Cement was up 4.3% to Rs 143 and UltraTech Cement Company gained 1.4% to Rs 969. ACC was very volatile during the session but managed to finish with a gain of 1.5% to Rs 1,150.

Telecom stocks gained on strong buying interest. The second-largest mobile services firm in India, Reliance Communications advanced 2.1% to Rs 579. The company has sold a 5% stake in its telecom tower business, worth 27,000 crore.

Bharti Airtel advanced 1.4% to Rs 896. Bharti Enterprises, the parent of Bharti Airtel announced on Wednesday, July 18 2007, one of its group companies had purchased a 4.99% in the telecom firm from Vodafone. Bharti''s voting interest in Bharti Airtel is now more than 50%.

IT stocks gained in expectation of global merger & acquisition activity. The second-largest IT services provider in India Infosys Technologies surged 2.6% to Rs 1,997 on speculation that it is close to buying the finance and accounting BPO arm of Philips Global.

Wipro bounced back from a low of Rs 494, and was up 0.19% to Rs 505.40. The company reported before market hours today, July 19 2007, a below estimates 16% increase in net profit to Rs 710 crore in first-quarter of June 2007 compared with the same period last year.

Decliners of the Day

There were only four Sensex stocks which fell today. Hindustan Unilever dipped 0.6% to Rs 198, Reliance Energy lost 0.4% to Rs 686, Cipla declined 0.4% to Rs 205 and Tata Steel, which finished almost flat, down 0.07% to Rs 682.

6:30AM European markets gain Thursday on strong corporate results in tech stocks.