As weak Asian markets hurt sentiment, the bulls chose to stay away for from the ring for well over an hour this morning. Even after they made an entry a little past mid morning, the market was seen struggling for the next couple of hours as stocks encountered stiff resistance at higher levels. And then, with the European markets opening on a firm note, the bulls dominated the ring and lifted the market to a buoyant close today.

The assurance from the Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee that the government will take all the required steps to control drought did have a positive impact on the market this afternoon. Also, with the August series derivatives contracts expiring in another few days, a fair amount of short-covering also contributed to the market's rise today.

The Sensex, which opened with a negative gap of over 60 points and lost close to 175 points as it tumbled to 14,835.08 in early trade, vaulted to 15,275.17 in the final hour and eventually ended the session at 15,240.83 with a strong gain of 228.51 points or 1.52%.

The National Stock Exchange's 50-stock Nifty index closed at 4528.80, up 75.35 points or 1.69% over Thursday's closing mark. In intra-day trades today, the Nifty touched a low of 4400.90 and a high of 4538.70.

Automobile stocks held firm right through the session today. Information technology stocks also had a bright outing. Realty stocks rallied sharply in afternoon trade and signed off on a high note. Bank, oil, FMCG, power and capital goods stocks also closed with sharp gains. There were sharp gains for select metal, PSU and pharma stocks as well.

Hero Honda, the biggest gainer in the Sensex today, moved up by 4.85%. ICICI Bank ended stronger by 3.65%. Mahindra & Mahindra gained over 3.5%. Bharti Airtel, ACC, BHEL and DLF gained 2% - 3%.

Infosys Technologies, Reliance Industries, ITC, Tata Consultancy Services, Maruti Suzuki, Tata Power, Sterlite Industries, HDFC, Wipro, Reliance Communications, State Bank of India, Hindustan Unilever, Grasim Industries, Reliance Infrastructure and ONGC gained 1% - 2% today.

Hindalco, Jaiprakash Associates, Tata Motors and Tata Steel finished with modest gains, while Larsen & Toubro and NTPC ended flat. Sun Pharmaceuticals and HDFC Bank closed weak.

HCL Technologies moved up by 9.75%. Axis Bank, GAIL India, Ranbaxy Laboratories, BPCL, Siemens, Jindal Steel, ABB, Idea Cellular, Suzlon Energy, Unitech, Punjab National Bank, Reliance Capital and Cairn India also closed with notable gains.

Besides large cap stocks, several midcap and smallcap stocks too moved up sharply on sustained buying this afternoon. The Midcap index surged 1.5% and the Smallcap barometer, faring even better, ended higher by 1.61%.

The market breadth was quite strong. Out of 2771 stocks traded on BSE today, 1711 stocks posted gains. 958 stocks declined and 102 stocks ended flat.