Market ends flat amid sharp swing

The market showed signs of easing off in the first half as the Sensex dropped nearly 132 points, but recovery in the afternoon trades and selective buying towards the close saw the Sensex end higher. Exhibiting sharp volatility in the first half, the Sensex resumed with a negative gap of 84 points at 14,726 and soon crossed the 17,700 mark to touch an intra-day high of 14,677 on sustained selling across the board. However, the market soon drifted into positive territory as a sharp bout of buying pressure dragged the index to an intra-day high of 15,170. After erasing losses in the noon trades, the Sensex once again notched up significant gains on renewed buying support before profit taking saw the Sensex shed some gains and end the session at 14,833, up 24 points. However, the Nifty after a mixed outing ended higher at 4,533, up 30 points.

However, the market breadth ended weak. Of the 2,734 stocks traded on the BSE 1,916 stocks declined, 753 stocks advanced and 65 stocks ended unchanged. Most of the sectoral indices ended with steady gains. However, the BSE Metal index dropped 2.07% at 13,441, while the BSE Bankex & CD index declined by around 1% each.

Select heavyweights helped the Sensex end at higher levels. Reliance pack led the recovery with Reliance Energy rising by 3.09% at Rs1,227.65 and Reliance Communications advancing by 3.03% at Rs476. Among the other major gainers DLF jumped 5.30% at Rs634.75, HUL scaled up 3.80% at Rs231.05, Ranbaxy Laboratories moved up by 3.40% at Rs452.85 and TCS gained 3.17% at Rs817.30. However, Jaiprakash Associates dropped 3.56% at Rs200.65, Tata Steel tumbled 2.92% at Rs639.25, SBI shed 2.52% at Rs1,592 and Hindalco lost 2% at Rs161.55. Infosys, RIL, ACC and Grasim also ended with losses.

Select consumer goods (CG) stocks rallied sharply. Havells India zoomed 6.21% at Rs430, Siemens advanced 4.44% at Rs653.60, Elecon Engineering added 3.21% at Rs170.20 and Punj Lloyd gained 3.17% at Rs307.30.

Metal stocks declined sharply on sustained selling pressure. Gujarat NRE tanked 7.42% at Rs134.85, Jindal Saw dropped 6.40% at Rs609.60, SH Precoated shed 4.97% at Rs151.05, Hindustan Zinc lost 4.68% at Rs518.90 and Sterlite Industries dipped 4.28% at Rs692.65.

Over 2.77 crore RNRL shares changed hands on the BSE followed by JaiPrakash Associates (2.55 crore shares), RPL (2.01 crore shares), Orchid Chemicals (1.13 crore shares) and GVK (1.09 crore shares).