The Sensex on Friday opened 75 points higher at 9,541 on the back of positive cues from the global markets. The index, displayed firm trend throughout the day even as the Railway minister, Lalu Prasad Yadav, presented on Friday the interim Railway Budget 2009.

Steady buying in metal, capital goods, banking, realty and energy stocks led the index rally to a high of 9,696. The Sensex finally ended with a gain of 169 points at 9,635.

The NSE Nifty ended at 2,948, up 55 points.

The BSE Metal index surged 2.7% to 5,278, and the Realty index gained 2.6% at 1,597. The Auto index rallied 2.4% to 2,617.

The Bankex and Capital Goods index moved up over 2% each to 5,023 and 6,517, respectively.

The market breadth was fairly positive - out of 2,528 stocks traded, 1,455 advanced and 970 declined on Friday.

INDEX MOVERS. . .

Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) zoomed 7.5% to Rs 322. ACC soared nearly 6% to Rs 581.

Tata Steel [Get Quote] surged 4.5% to Rs 194, and Reliance Communications [Get Quote] rallied over 4% to Rs 180.

BHEL gained 3.5% at Rs 1,462. Reliance Infrastructure, Jaiprakash Associates [Get Quote] and Maruti [Get Quote] advanced around 3% each to Rs 568, Rs 75 and Rs 632, respectively.

SBI [Get Quote] moved up 2.8% to Rs 1,192. Sterlite, ICICI Bank [Get Quote], DLF, Reliance and Larsen & Toubro were up around 2.5% each at Rs 276, Rs 432, Rs 160, Rs 1,386 and Rs 699, respectively.

. . .AND THE SHAKERS

Sun Pharma [Get Quote] plunged 3.7% to Rs 1,065.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

United Spirits [Get Quote] topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 207.35 crore followed by Educomp Solutions [Get Quote] (Rs 197.40 crore), Reliance (Rs 138 crore), Reliance Infrastructure (Rs 136.40 crore) and Spice Telecom (Rs 112.15 crore).

Spice Telecom led the volume chart with trades of around 1.27 crore shares followed by Hexaware [Get Quote] (1.27 crore), Wire & Wireless (1.25 crore), Dish TV (1.20 crore) and Unitech (1.18 crore).