By IANS
Mumbai : India shares managed to close in the green Thursday despite early losses, riding on strong buying in select blue-chip stocks, to take a key index up by 0.61 percent.
The 30-share benchmark Sensitive Index of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) rose 87.29 points or 0.61 percent to close at 14,499.24, with 20 of its components trading in the green.
The broad-based 50-issue Nifty index of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) gained 19 points or 0.44 percent to close at 4,267.40.
While private sector energy producer Reliance Energy, which led the Sensex gainers, rose 4.16 percent to Rs.560.40, engineering and construction major L&T witnessed a record close. It rose 3.88 percent to close at Rs.2,106.60, gaining Rs.78.65 over its last trade, after the company bagged a $95 million shipbuilding contract with a Dutch firm.
Heavy electrical equipment maker BHEL gained 3.64 percent to close at Rs.1,481.70.
Financial stocks too made a killing buoyed by heavy response to the mega IPO of private sector lender ICICI Bank. While shares in HDFC were up 2.14 percent at Rs.1,849.15, top lender State Bank of India was up 1.43 percent at Rs.1,445.55.
Other major stocks that traded in the green were top aluminium producer Hindalco Industries and cement majors Gujarat Ambuja Cements and ACC.
Two-wheeler maker Hero Honda led the major losers, down 1.08 percent at Rs.661.50, followed by software exporter Satyam Computers, down 1.06 percent at Rs.466.80 and automobile major Maruti Udyog, down 0.94 percent at Rs.761.40.
Others in the red were private sector telecom service provider Bharti Airtel, textile major Grasim Industries, hospitality and tobacco major ITC, energy major Oil and Natural Gas Corp, pharma major Cipla and top software exporter Tata Consultancy Services.