The Sensex surge materialised in the last one hour of trading. After a strong debut on higher Asian markets, the Sensex had pared gains shortly, before recovering again in mid-morning trade. It came off higher level in the afternoon trade, when the Sensex wiped out almost its entire gains. The market once again bounced back from the lower level in late afternoon trade.

The Sensex closed with a gain of 1.4 per cent to settle at 14,127.31, its highest closing in about three weeks since April 26, 2007. The S&P CNX Nifty advanced 50.65 points to 4170.95.

Bank stocks extended this week’s gains, with the BSE bank index rising 3.1 per cent. All the sectoral indices on BSE barring IT clocked gains today.

The BSE IT sector lost 0.5 per cent on rupee’s rise against the dollar. IT stocks were also hit by reports that two US Senators had claimed that Indian IT firms were misusing the H-1B visa programme. A strong rebound on the domestic bourses had materialised last month as the initial Q4 results were strong and Infosys issued a strong guidance. From 12,455.37 on April 2, 2007, the Sensex had surged 1,773.51 points (14.2 per cent) to 14,228.88 on April 26, 2007. It has since then turned volatile.

The surge in bank stocks came after the Lok Sabha on Tuesday passed the State Bank of India (Subsidiary Bank Laws) Amendment Bill, 2006. The amendment bill will allow SBI to reduce its stake in subsidiary banks to 51 per cent, from the existing 55 per cent. Select banks surged. Dena Bank jumped 11.9 per cent, UCO Bank 8 per cent, Oriental Bank of Commerce 7.5 per cent, Bank of Maharashtra 5.8 per cent and Andhra Bank 3.6 per cent.

Real estate stocks rose on renewed speculative buying. Peninsula Land jumped 15.7 per cent, Ansal Infrastructure rose 10.7 per cent, Parsvnath Developers rose 7 per cent, Mahindra Gesco Developers rose 6.8 per cent. Unitech joins $10 bn club MUMBAI: Real estate and construction major Unitech Ltd has joined the $10 billion market valuation club with its share price surging over 10 per cent on the bourses. The company has jumped to the 17th position in the overall list of companies with its market cap going past the $10-billion mark. The company has moved ahead of Reliance Petroleum, Tata Steel, HDFC Bank and Suzlon Energy among others in terms of market capitalisation. The scrip on Wednesday ended at Rs 535.25 up about Rs 50 on the BSE taking its market capitalisation to Rs 43,446.24 crore.