Market ends steady

The 82-point rally within few minutes of opening trades lifted the Sensex to a new intra-day high of 16,540, but lack of fresh buying support thereafter pushed the market into a range-bound mode with a positive bias. While the index traded off its early highs for most part of the trading session, extended profit-taking towards the fag-end dragged the index to the day's low of 16,315. Buying in select heavyweights, however, saw the Sensex bounce from its lows and end 99 points higher at 16,416. The Nifty, however, ended higher at 4,870.

Repeating yesterday's trend, the broader market once again ended weak. Of the 2,766 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,692 stocks declined, 1,013 stocks advanced and 61 stocks ended unchanged. Sectoral indices displayed a mixed trend on the BSE. The BSE CG and the BSE IT index were the major gainers and rose above 2% each, while the BSE Teck index, the BSE HC index, the BSE Metal index and the BSE FMCG were up a percent each. The BSE Power index, the BSE Oil & Gas index, the BSE Realty index, the BSE Auto index, the BSE PSU index, the BSE CD index and the BSE Bankex index however slipped into the red.

HDFC was the star performer among the index stocks and soared 5.59% at Rs2,569.15. While Ranbaxy Laboratories flared up 4.77% at Rs528.65, BHEL rose 3.89% at Rs1,662.15, Infosys scaled 3.64% at Rs1,957.55, Tata Consultancy Services moved up 3.41% at Rs1,029.25 and Larsen & Toubro moved up by 3.19% at Rs2,981.35. HDFC Bank at Rs1,355.70, Bharti Airtel at Rs876.45, ONGC at Rs1.24, Hindalco at Rs191.95, ACC at Rs660.65 and Tata Steel at Rs902.90 gained around 1-2% each.

Among the laggards, JP Associates dropped 5.39% at Rs213.20, Ambuja Cement shed 2.66% at Rs95.20, Reliance Industries lost 2.63% at Rs2,401.65 and Mahindra & Mahindra was down 2.26% at Rs592.50. State Bank of India, Reliance Infra, ICICI Bank, Tata Motors and Cipla slipped marginally and ended weak.

Dalal Street Investments at Rs2,759.70, Softbpo Global at Rs354.40, Sandur Manganese & Iron Ores at Rs1,347.25, Sterlite Biotec at Rs220.90, Sanket International at Rs15.92, Ckoramaandel Cements at Rs40.20, Aarey Drugs at Rs44.40, KLG Capital Services at Rs89.30 and JPT Securities at Rs63.05 touched new intra-day highs on the BSE.

Over 2.62 crore IFCI shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Reliance Power (1.44 crore shares), Spice Telecom (1.35 crore shares), Ispat Industries (1.20 crore shares) and Reliance Natural Resources (66.22 lakh shares).