After touching an intraday high of 15,235.51, the BSE Sensex finally ended the day at 15,138.40, up 152.70 points, whereas the broad-based NSE Nifty ended at 4,401.55, up 45.2 points.

The 30-share index opened positively at 15,061.13 and continued to trade strongly supported by good global cues and continued buying activity witnessed among heavyweights in the morning trades. Afterwards, the index cast off the majority of its gains in the afternoon to finally end the day on a firm note.

For the week ended July 21, wholesale price index based inflation was 4.36%, which was lower than 4.41% recorded in the previous week. Market estimates for inflation stood at 4.36%.

On BSE, there were 1,538 progressions as against 1,002 declinations. Among the sectoral indices, BSE Auto rose 1.04%, BSE IT rose 1.19%, BSE Realty rose 2.15%, BSE Metal rose 1.39%, BSE Bankex and BSE FMCG rose 1.28% respectively.

The major players of the day include SBI, NTPC, HDFC, ACC, Tata Steel, Grasim and Hindalco. In contrast, losers’ at the BSE were Ranbaxy, Dr Reddy, Ambuja Cement, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Industries and HDFC Bank.

Reliance Petroleum topped the volume charts with 4.23 milllion shares being traded, followed by Spice Telecom with 2.97 million shares, Lanco Infra with 2.34 million shares and GMR Infrastructure with 1.86 million shares.