Market ends choppy

The market resumed with a huge positive gap of 74 points on firming trends in global markets, expectations of a further ease in inflation and smart gains in yesterday's trades. The market remained firm but within a range of 14250-14300 in the early trades. The stocks rallied sharply in the afternoon session as India’s inflation rate slipped to 4.8% in the week ended June 2 and touched the intra-day high of 14327. The Sensex shed some gains thereafter but recovered on some buying interest for a while. The Sensex slipped further as selling intensified in frontline, information technology (IT) and metal stocks dragging the index down to enter into negative territory and touch the day's low of 14113. After slipping over 200 points from the day's high the Sensex ended the session by shedding 41 points at 14163. The Nifty closed the session by adding a point at 4171.

Although the market fell sharply, the breadth of the market was positive. Of the 2,571 stocks traded on the BSE 1,275 stocks advanced, 1,210 stocks declined and 86 stocks ended unchanged. Among the sectoral indices the BSE IT Index, the BSE Metal Index and the BSE Oil & Gas Index lost around 1% each while the BSE CG Index gained 1.68% and the BSE CD Index added 1.18%.

The index heavyweights stocks witnessed heavy selling. Tata Steel slumped 2.29% at Rs600, HDFC lost 2.23% at Rs1,785, NTPC shed 1.89% at Rs151, Grasim plunged 1.79% at Rs2,389, Hindalco crumbled by 1.68% at Rs161, TCS declined 1.60% at Rs1,184, Satyam Computer dropped 1.55% at Rs483 while Reliance Industries, Dr Reddy's Lab and Gujarat Ambuja Cement slipped marginally. Select counters, however, managed to buck the downtrend and ended in the green. BHEL rose 2.95% at Rs1,389, Maruti Udyog moved up by 1.62% at Rs740, L&T added 1.29% at Rs1,948 and Tata Motors gained 1.21% at Rs650 and Ranbaxy ended higher by 1.01% at Rs374.

IT stocks lost ground on selling pressure. Hexaware dropped 3.40% at Rs161, KLG Systel slumped 3.17% at Rs381, Allsec Technologies declined 3.17% at Rs257, Asian CERC lost 2.81% at Rs195 and Helios & Matheson fell by 2.60% at Rs161.

Over 1.41crore IFCI shares changed hands on the BSE followed by GV Films (1 crore shares), IQMS Software (57.36 lakh shares), IKF Technologies (51.30 lakh shares) and Reliance Natural Resources (45.66 lakh shares).

Value-wise MIC Electronics registered a turnover of Rs154 crore followed by Reliance Industries (Rs128 crore), Indiabulls Real Estate (Rs127 crore), ICRA (Rs112 crore) and Reliance Capital (Rs89 crore).