Market trips on volatile moves

The market remained under the grip of strong volatile moves as key indices kept swinging between positive and negative zones through the session. After resuming slightly above its last close at 20,903, the market snapped gains in early trades before frenzied buying propelled the index to an intra-day high of 21,113. While the market failed to make any further impact thereafter, the index drifted into the red once again in noon trades to touch the day's low of 20,701. The Sensex, after witnessing an intra-day swing of 412 points, ended 4 points down at 20,870, while the Nifty declined 4 points to close at 6,272.

The market breadth ended weak. Of the 2,912 stocks traded on the BSE, 2,128 stocks declined, 766 stocks advanced and 18 stocks ended unchanged. In a volatile market, the BSE Realty index rose 0.61% while the BSE CD index, the BSE Teck index, the BSE Power index and the BSE IT index ended with steady gains. Other sectoral indices, however, ended at lower levels.

Dragging the Sensex, M&M shed 2.67% at Rs807.90, BHEL dipped 2.02% at Rs2,443.80, ONGC lost 1.76% at Rs1,298.65 and ICICI Bank was down 1.73% at Rs1,310.45. Ranbaxy, ACC, Maruti, ITC, RIL and Tata Motors were down 1% each. NTPC, however, advanced 4.49% at Rs277.15, HDFC moved up 3.59% at Rs3,174.25 and Reliance Communications moved up 2.05% at Rs820.80. Hindalco, HDFC Bank and DLF ended with steady gains.

Among the Realty stocks HDIL led the momentum with 12.19% at Rs1,357.75, Mahindra Life, Anant Raj, DLF, Sobha Developers, Indiabulls Realty, Peninsula Land and Puravankara Projects gained 0.13-3.84% each. Power stocks CESC, Siemens, Torrent Power and REL rose over 2-4% each.

Over 1.81 Crore Ispat Industries shares changed hands on the BSE followed by RPL (1.39 Crore shares), Ashok Leyland (75.30 lakh shares), NTPC (57.85 lakh shares) and Spice Tele (37.83 lakh shares).

Reliance Capital was the most actively traded counter on the BSE with a turnover of Rs369 crore followed by RPL (Rs331 crore), Reliance Communications (Rs308 crore), REL (Rs222 crore) and RIL (Rs160 crore).