It was Reliance once again, with the recovery in share price and a prolonged victory of bulls over bears. After dipping to a low of Rs 105 on Wednesday, Reliance shot up to regain some of its lost sheen and closed at Rs 119.20. Market participants attributed the renewed buying interest to market valuation, coupled with large scale short positions at the counter in the GDR markets. On the BSE the stock was traded in the band of Rs 109.30 and Rs 119.20, the intra-day's low and high respectively, and was finally locked at Rs 119.20 where an outstanding buy order of 1.64 lakh shares was not executed. Over 2.15 crore shares exchanged hands on the local bourses. On the NSE, the stock was locked at Rs 118.30, registering a volume of 1.12 crore shares.

While the game plan of the arbitrageurs was concentrated at the local bourses, the GDR price of Reliance took a further beating to trade at $ 5.12 (Rs 109.62) registering a decline of 3.40 per cent over Wednesday's close. According to market sources, SSKI was rumoured to have bought huge chunks of Reliance which led to the rally at the counter during the mid session.

Another star performer of the day was ITC which breached the crucial barrier of Rs 600 to close at Rs 615.75 on the BSE, registering a gain of 5.30 per cent. The GDR of ITC also recovered by 5.45 per cent to trade at $ 15.87.

Info-tech counters continued to be in the limelight and participated in the rally which triggered off with the positive development at the counter of Reliance and ITC.

Mirroring the speculative nature of business at the local bourses coupled with select buying by institutional players, stocks like Satyam Computers, Zee Telefilms, Pentafour Software and Philips (India) touched the upper end of the price band.

The impact of RBI's dose in terms of offering forward cover to the FIIs was felt at the local bourses. A section of market participants reported select FII purchases at the counters of ITC, MTNL, Bhel, Satyam and Telco. On the NSE, FIIs bought stocks worth Rs 10 crore but continued to be net sellers to the tune of Rs 18.95 crore.

``Confluence of various economic factors led to the rally at the stock markets,'' explained Ajit Sanghvi of Malini Sanghvi Securities, while highlighting the positive impact of RBI's move to stablise the rupee. ``The 2,883 levels did provide the necessary support to the index,'' he added.Market men also cited the positive development in the market in terms of the huge collections made by UTI. ``If UTI has made a collection of over Rs 5,000 crore, it is bound to bring in good news to the market both in direct and indirect manner,'' explained a BSE broker who referred to the huge loans which would be extended by UTI to corporates. UTI was rumoured to have bought EIH, German Remedies, Ingersoll Rand and Hoechst Marrion.