Market ends flat

The market appeared to be heading towards a negative close as the strong bout of selling saw the Sensex enter into the negative territory, though for a while. The Sensex had a roaring start and the index continued its record rally for the third consecutive session today. Taking cues from the strong Asian markets the Sensex rallied sharply in the morning trades and touched the all-time high of 15,683. The index also received major support from L&T, Tata Steel and Bharti Airtel which gained around 3-4% today. Capital goods and metal stocks rallied sharply but cement and IT stocks remained subdued as traders booked profits. On the result front, Satyam Computer reported disappointing numbers, while Exide Industries showed a solid jump in its quarterly profits. The market remained stable in the afternoon as a string of results kept the momentum going. However, the Sensex saw profit booking towards the close and entered into the negative territory to touch the day's low of 15,525. It, however, recovered on buying in few pivotal stocks and closed the session at 15,566, up 15 points. The Nifty ended the session at 4,566, up four points.

The market breadth was negative, with the losers outpacing the gainers in the ratio of 1.85:1. Of the 2,660 stocks that traded on the BSE, 1,693 stocks declined, 912 stocks advanced and 55 stocks ended unchanged. Most of the sectoral indices ended in the red. The BSE CD index dropped 1.44% at 4,210 followed by the BSE IT index (down 0.71% at 4,921) and the BSE Bankex index (down 0.70% at 8,395). However, the BSE Realty index gained 1.60% at 8,183, the BSE CG index (up 1.51% at 13,070) and the BSE Metal index (up 1.48% at 12,211).

Among the Sensex stocks, steel major Tata Steel was the leading gainer and its stock price soared 4.84% at Rs715. Among the other stocks L&T advanced 4.15% at Rs2,475, Bharti Airtel jumped 3.03% at Rs923, while M&M, Reliance Communication, HDFC, Dr Reddy's Lab, Reliance Energy, Ranbaxy and Grasim closed with marginal gains. Among the laggards, ACC slipped 3.75% at Rs1,107, Bajaj Auto shed 2.30% at Rs2,327, Cipla declined by 2.21% at Rs201, Ambuja Cement fell by 2.09% at Rs136 and Hindalco lost 1.88% at Rs182.

Over 1.62 crore Tata Teleservices shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Spice Communication (1.58 crore shares), IFCI (1.11 crore lakh shares), Petronet LNG (94.93 lakh shares) and IKF Technologies (69.68 lakh shares).

Reliance Industries registered a turnover of Rs158 crore on the BSE followed by DLF (Rs157 crore), Indiabulls Real Estate (Rs152 crore), Tata Steel (Rs128 crore) and ACC (Rs124 crore).