Market cools, sheds 19 points

The market failed to hold on to its first-half gains and buckled under sustained selling pressure in noon trades, with the index gyrating over 170 points during intra-day trades. Taking cues from positive Asian indices in early trades, the Sensex opened higher at 15,535 and touched the day's high of 15,581 quickly, but sustained selling in index heavyweights dragged the Sensex into the negative territory by afternoon. After zigzagging between the positive and negative territory thereafter, the market gained momentum in the late trades on buying in heavyweights, consumer durables and FMCG stocks. However, profit bookings towards the close saw the Sensex shed the early gains and end the session at 15,446, down 19 points. The Nifty also finally closed the session in the negative territory at 4,476, down three points.

The breadth of the market, however, was positive. Of the 2,793 stocks traded on the BSE 1,436 stocks advanced, 1,298 stocks declined and 59 stocks ended unchanged. Most of the sectoral indices of the BSE ended in positive territory. The BSE CD index gained 1.07% at 4,449. However, the BSE Oil & Gas index and the BSE CG index closed marginally down.

Among the Sensex pivotal stocks, Maruti Udyog slipped 2.34% at Rs873, Ranbaxy dropped 1.66% at Rs399, ACC declined by 1.38% at Rs1,082, L&T lost 1.32% at Rs2,589, Bharti Airtel shed 1.20% at Rs849, HDFC slumped by 1.09% at Rs2,037 while, SBI, Bhel, M&M and Reliance Industries closed with marginal losses. However, select few managed to report gains. NTPC moved up by 2.23% at Rs185, Cipla added 1.87% at Rs183, Wipro gained 1.47% at Rs473, Ambuja Cement surged 1.29% at Rs138 and ICICI Bank advanced 1.17% at Rs915.

Over 1.51 crore Nagarjuna Fertilisers shares changed hands on the BSE followed by IFCI (1.04 crore shares), IKF Technologies (97.50 lakh shares), Tata Teleservices (79.74 lakh shares) and Reliance Natural Resources (78.88 lakh shares).

Everonn Systems was the most actively traded counter on the BSE with a turnover of Rs134 crore followed by Reliance Industries (Rs129 crore), Take Solutions (Rs125 crore), Lakshmi Machine Works (Rs124 crore) and Reliance Energy (Rs117 crore).