The Sensex rise of 7.24 per cent on Friday was the largest in percentageterms in a single day since the 7.39 per cent jump seen on January 3, 2000.With FIIs pouring in an additional Rs 362 crore on Thursday, market playershad reason to believe that foreign investors still consider the marketsundervalued. Besides, the sharp rally in Infosys ADR on Thursday broughtback life into technology stocks which have been hammered down by 40 to 50per cent over the last three weeks.

A significant feature of trading on Friday was the lack of volumes onaccount of the circuit filter. With a large number of shares hitting theupper circuit filter, the turnover on BSE was limited to Rs 1,607 crore. Themarkets had witnessed a similar bind on Tuesday when 90 per cent of thescrips had hit the lower circuit with the turnover remaining around Rs 1,500crore.

During Friday's trading, a number of counters where huge buying wasexpected, the volume of share transacted was unusually low. This, accordingto market players, resulted in extremely low volumes in these particularcounters which were frozen at the upper circuit from the word go.

Infosys is the best example - with the company's ADR gaining $50 on theNasdaq on Thursday night, the Infosys counter was destined for majorfireworks in the domestic market. In Friday's early trades, the stock hitthe upper circuit on the BSE and remained frozen there with the price at Rs9,110. However, only 9336 shares of the company could be transacted duringthe day.

In counters like Mastek and HCL Technologies only 5,000 and 6,000 shares,were traded as these counters were also on the upper freeze from the start.However, in those counters where people were not sure about the movement ofthe scrip, volumes were respectable. In Satyam, 2.35 lakh shares changedhands on the BSE generating a turnover of Rs 85.08 crore. But even this wasmuch lower than the average daily turnover in the counter which often clocksturnovers in excess of Rs 300 crore on the BSE.

The market opened with a huge gap, and gained further ground. At theopening, all the top software stocks hit the upper circuit, and remainedthere for a major part of the day. Later, the buying spread to non-softwarestocks. Reliance, HLL, ITC, MTNL showed handsome gains and helped the Sensexrecord a 352.47 points rally. Reliance GDR rose to $27.5 which is Rs 600 pershare or 70 per cent premium to the domestic price.

In the specified list, around 95 per cent stocks showed a positive trend, ofwhich around 70 per cent were at the upper circuit. Stocks which failed toshow a positive close were: Bajaj Auto, Cadbury, Arvind Mills, AmarajaBatteries, Reckitt Colman, and Bank of Baroda.

The Sensex opened at 4897.10 points and touched a high of 5222.80 beforeclosing at 5219.20. The Nifty too showed a gain of 104 points and closed at1557 points. The advance-decline ratio was also favourable. Advances stoodat 1314 while declines were 403.

The Sensex breached all technical barriers on Friday and market players seeroom for appreciation in stock prices. According to Chirag Sanghvi at Asit CMehta Investment Intermediaries, the index now has a higher top-higherbottom. "On the downside, we are looking at 4950 whereas on the higher sidethe range is 5350," said Sanghvi. And according to Hanuman Bhatia at ParagParikh Financial Advisory Services, in case the Sensex breaches the5397-level, we are likely to witness another 400-points rally from thatlevel. According to dealers, selling has been postponed due to Friday'sexcessive bouyancy in the market and this calls for some caution. "In casethe market fails to sustain the bouyant mood, there could be some majorselling," said a dealer with an institutional brokerage.

The Sensex' run towards the upper circuit level of 8 per cent was spoiled bythree old economy stocks- ITC, SBI and Nestle. Had these three stocks beenon the upper circuit, the Sensex would have also been frozen at 5253 level.SBI, with a turnover of Rs 109 crore from 50.88 lakh shares, came at thenumber three spot on the BSE turnover table.

Stocks which closed at the upper circuit were: Infosys, Wipro, Satyam,Digital, NIIT, Global Tele, HFCL, DSQ Soft, Aptech, SSI, HCL Info, Rolta,Silverline, ACC, Gujarat Ambuja, L&T, Ranbaxy, MTNL, Telco, Rel Capital,BSES, Videocon International, M&M, HPCL, Sterlite, Dr Reddy, Cipla, TataTea, Grasim, Apollo, Simens, India Cements, Essel Packaging and McDowell.Other gainers for the day were: HLL, ITC, Reliance, Colgate, IPCL, HDFC,Tata Chem, Hindalco, Philips, Century Crompton Greaves, Rhone Poulenc,Finolex Cables, KEC International, Fintech Comm, Henkle Spic, KeralaAyurveda, Indo Castle. Meanwhile, stocks like Odyssey Technologies, CoreHealth, Bhartiya International, Excel Ind, Gordon Herb and STC India hit thelower circuit.