Sensex recovers but ends flat

The market wiped out a loss of over 260 points incurred during the intra-day trades after a strong bout of buying led by ITC, Ambuja Cement and NTPC in the afternoon changed the sentiment to bullish. The Sensex resumed 176 points lower at 15,414 following the weakness in Asian indices and crashed to the day's low of 15,364 on relentless selling pressure amid high volatility. The market showed strong optimism thereafter and the Sensex witnessed a sharp turn-around as gains in heavyweight, FMCG, oil and consumer durable stocks propelled it to an intra-day high of 15,626. The market turned extremely choppy and gyrated between the positive and negative territories for the later part of the trading session and the Sensex closed with a gain of six points at 15,597. The Nifty ended two points higher at 4,508.

The market breadth was marginally positive. Of the 2,798 stocks that traded on the BSE, 1,650 stocks advanced, 1,087 stocks declined and 61 stocks ended unchanged. Most of the sectoral indices ended in the green. The BSE FMCG index advanced 1.88% at 2,085 followed by the BSE CD index (up 1.53% at 4,548) and the BSE Oil & gas index (up 0.91% at 8,260). However, the BSE IT index slipped 1.91% at 4,571, the BSE Teck index (down 1.01% at 3,605) and the BSE Metal index (down 0.03% at 11,606).

Among the Sensex stocks, FMCG major ITC was the leading gainer and its stock price soared 3.74% at Rs185. Among the other stocks, Ambuja Cement advanced 3.25% at Rs145, Ranbaxy jumped 2.17% at Rs419, NTPC gained 2.14% at Rs191, Relance Energy moved up by 1.63% at Rs864, Reliance Industries added 1.32% at Rs1,987 and SBI surged 1.26% at Rs1,641. Among the laggards, TCS slipped 2.82% at Rs1,047, Wipro shed 2.39% at Rs467, ONGC declined by 2.19% at Rs832, Infosys fell by 1.96% at Rs1,872 and Satyam Computer lost 1.67% at Rs442.

Over 2.25 crore IFCI shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Tata Teleservices (88.84 lakh shares), Nagarjuna Fertilisers (83.12 lakh shares), IKF Technologies (80.90 lakh shares) and Nandan Exim (64.28 lakh shares).

IFCI registered a turnover of Rs164 crore on the BSE followed by Reliance Industries (Rs122 crore), Aptech (Rs106 crore), Reliance Petroleum (Rs74 crore) and SBI (Rs72 crore).