Market ends positive

The market was poised for another positive finish, but a late bout of selling pressure dragged the Sensex below 17,800 and halted its resurgence. On the back of firm international indices, the Sensex opened with a positive gap of 177 points at 17,983 and moved up sharply to touch the day's high of 18,137. However, the market came under a sharp bout of profit taking and was 33 points down from the yesterday's close, with the index slipping to an intra-day low of 17,772. Finally, the Sensex erased most of its losses and ended 20 points up at 17,825, while the Nifty was down two points at 5,268.

The market breadth was marginally positive. Of the 2,805 stocks traded on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), 1,435 stocks advanced, 1,294 stocks declined and 76 stocks ended unchanged. On sectoral front, BSE CG index flared up by 2.37% at 16,507 and BSE HC index gained 1.22% at 3,860, while BSE Power ended marginally higher at 3,733. Other sectoral indices were down around 1% each.

Among the major losers Grasim Industries declined 5.06% at Rs2,888.56, Reliance Energy lost 3.88% at Rs1,631.35, Satyam Computer Services slumped 2.81% at Rs437.10 and Infosys was down 2.69% at Rs1,617.40. Select heavyweights attracted buying support. M&M rose 4.52% at Rs658.65, HDFC moved up by 4.27% at Rs2,684.40, Ranbaxy advanced 4.10% at Rs436.35 and BHEL gained 3.78% at Rs2,262.90.

Over 2.05 crore Ispat Industries shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Tulsi Extrusion (1.86 crore shares), IRB Infrastructure (1.53 crore shares), Central Bank of Punjab (0.86 crore shares) and Power Grid (0.85 crore shares).