The Sensex continued its strong rally on the back of continued buying interest witnessed across index pivotals.

Investors were aggressively buying capital goods, auto, metal and banking stocks on hopes of reforms while at the same time IT stocks were being ditched on worries that increasing Indian currency could strike profit margins

Secondline stocks also backed the upmove.

BSE Midcap Index was up 4.92 per cent and BSE Smallcap Index advanced 3.42 per cent.

Among the sectoral indices, BSE Realty and Capital goods rallied over 11% each, Bankex gained more than 9.56%, Metal zoomed 7.02%, Auto increased over 6.37% each, while IT lost 8.11% and FMCG remained down by 3.93%.

At 12:55 p. m., the 30-share index Sensex was at 14,573.34, up 289.13 points, or 2.02%. The index touched an intra-day high of 14,757.82 and low of 13,834.13.

Meanwhile, National Stock Exchange's Nifty was at 4,386.85, up 63.70 points, or 1.47%. The broader index touched a high of 4,464.90 and low of 4,167.65.

The broader market remained strong, with gainers outnumbering losers 1845:667 on BSE.

According to Sharekhan report, "The overnight gains in international markets and positive opening in most of the Asian indices in ongoing trades may help the local market advance further. Among the key indices, the Nifty can see an up- move till 4410 levels and has a key support at 4250 levels in the near-term. The Sensex has a likely support at 14100 and may face resistance at 14450."

The top gainers' list included Reliance Capital, which surged 21.84%, L&T up 15.19%, RCom zoomed 13.52%, SBI gained 13.02%, DLF increased 11.73% and ICICI Bank jumped 10.75%.

The major losers in the Sensex included Infosys, which shed 11.01%, Wipro lost 7.83%, TCS dipped 6.12%, ITC declined 5.72%, HUL dropped 4.42%, and RIL declined
2.75%.

Asian stocks surged with increase in confidence among US homebuilders, an increase in oil rates and a fall in bank borrowing costs stoked hopefulness that the global economic system is making recovery.

Nikkei surged 251.60 points to trade at 9,290.29, Hang Seng index increased 515.78 points to trade at 17,538.69 and Shanghai Composite zoomed 21.33 points to trade at 2,674.11. (12.04 p. m, IST)