Pharma and Info-tech counters continued to be the favourite of the market players, which reflected on the steady appreciation in the stock prices of these stocks. Mirroring the institutional buying interest Novartis witnessed a sharp rise of 8 per cent to touch the upper end of the price band at Rs 523.50. However, profit booking towards the second phase saw the stock close at Rs 517 registering a net gain of over 6 per cent.

While market attributed the renewed interest to the sound fundamentals of the pharma industry, a section of the players also indicated the rising participation of big time brokers on the local bourses.

Other pharma stocks like Knoll Pharma, German Remedies, Dr Reddy's, Pfizer, Wyeth Labs, Rhone Poulenc, Procter & Gamble and Burroughs Welcome continued their upward stride for the second consecutive day. The Emerck counter however registered substantial price erosion towards the second phase on account of profit booking at higher levels by UTI.

Select pharma stocks like Fullford, FDC, Abbott Labs which are traded in the non-specified section of the BSE were locked on the upper limit of the price band.

Interestingly, stocks like Thermax, Dabur and Britannia which had attracted high backwardation on the BSE at the carry forward session on Saturday registered a smart recovery on the local bourses today. While Thermax was locked at the upper limit at Rs 210.50 on the NSE despite today being the last day of the trading cycle, Britannia and Dabur moved up by over 3 per cent on an average. The gains made at the Thermax counter according to market participants was on account of the completion of the no-delivery settlements.

On the NSE, pivotals firmed up on buying spree from institutions and bull operators. The total turnover on the exchange was Rs 1207.84 crore involving 539.87 lakh in 1,91,039 traded. The total debenture traded value was Rs 15.03 lakh. About 63 securities have hit their price bands. Among the total securities 567 were advances, 394 declines and 77 remained unchanged.