Market ends flat

In a spiritless trading session, the market displayed a range-bound trend with select bouts of buying and selling. After opening 112 points higher over its previous close of 8,739, the Sensex scaled higher to touch an intra-day high of 8,855. In mid session the market remained steady, however the sentiment turned bearish at the end of the session and the index dipped to the day's low of 8,601. However, the Sensex on the back of selective stocks ended on a flat note at 8,747, up by just eight points. Nifty however lost a point for the day to close at 2,656. Market breadth on the BSE was positive. Of the 2,188 stocks traded, 1,180 stocks advanced whereas 930 stocks declined; the remaining 78 stocks ended unchanged.

Sectoral indices showed a mixed result. BSE Metal, BSE Realty, BSE CD, BSE Bankex, BSE PSU, BSE CG, BSE Auto and BSE Power ended in the green, However, BSE IT, BSE Teck, BSE Oil, BSE HC and BSE FMCG exhibited weakness.

Among the gainers, Tata Steel flared up 10.80% at Rs164.70, JP Associates moved up 8.04% at Rs62.45, Maruti Suzuki India jumped 6.94% at Rs492, State Bank of India gained 5.50% at Rs1,097, DLF scaled up by 5.44% at Rs191.90, Tata Motors was up 3.74% at Rs133.20 and ICICI Bank advanced up 3.44% at Rs334.90. Reliance Infrastructure, Larsen & Toubro, HDFC, Sterlite Industries, Ranbaxy Laboratories, Tata Power and Tata Consultancy Services reported steady gains. However, Infosys Technologies dropped 4.29% at Rs1,157.85, Wipro shed 4.23% at Rs223 and Mahindra & Mahindra dipped 2.80% at Rs242.80. Reliance Communications, Hindalco, and ONGC were marginally down.

Over 2.36 crore Unitech shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Suzlon Energy (1.46 crore shares), GVK Power & Infrastructure (1.23 crore shares) and NIIT (0.78 crore shares)