Indices close flat; PSU, metal outperform

A day after the Sensex gained over 400 points on sustained all-round buying, the market was gloomy amid a range-bound trend during intra-day trades. After shedding 67 points to yesterday's close, the market slipped further in the afternoon, as investors tracked weak Asian indices, with the Sensex tumbling below the 18,550 mark to touch the day's low of 18,510. Along with the selling in heavyweights, the major correction in auto, banking and IT stocks also weighed on the indices. However, select buying in public sector units (PSU) and metal stocks towards the close saw the Sensex enter into the green. The Sensex finally closed the session with a gain of three points at 18,663, while the Nifty moved up by 20 points at 5,484.

However, the broader market was positive. Of the 2,835 stocks traded on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) 1,915 stocks advanced, 869 stocks declined and 51 stocks ended unchanged.

The BSE Metal index led the surge in the sectoral indices on the BSE and rose 2.16% at 16,794. The BSE HC index, the BSE Oil & Gas index, the BSE Power index, the BSE PSU index and the BSE Realty index were the other notable gainers, while the BSE Auto index, the BSE Banking index and the BSE IT index ended weak.

Buying was led by NTPC, which notched up gains of 4.03% at Rs223. Among the other gainers Ranbaxy advanced 3.78% at Rs387, Hindalco added 1.93% at Rs182, Tata Steel moved up 1.87% at Rs818, Cipla jumped by 1.81% at Rs203, HDFC gained 1.78% at Rs3,070 and ONGC was up 1.78% at Rs1,074. However, TCS, Maruti Suzuki, M&M, Bajaj Auto, Wipro and HDFC Bank were down over 2% each.

Over 2.20 crore RNRL shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Ispat Industries (1.91 crore shares), IFCI (1.52 crore shares), Tata Teleservices (1.08 crore shares) and Reliance Petroleum (93.77 lakh shares).

Valuewise, Reliance Communications registered a turnover of Rs414 crore on the BSE followed by RNRL (Rs330 crore), Jindal Steel (Rs187 crore), Future Capital (Rs164 crore) and Reliance Petroleum (Rs163 crore).