Mute welcome to the New Year

Sensex opened 91 points above its previous close tracking positive Asian markets. However, it could not hold on to its gains as trading progressed due to lack of buying. Prevailing bearish sentiment kept the market range-bound with a negative bias in the latter part of the session on the back of selling in banking and oil & gas stocks. Towards the fag end selling in frontline stocks saw Sensex touch its day's low of 9,588. Sensex finally ended the day with a loss of 69 points at 9,647, while Nifty slipped 20 points at 2,959.

Market breadth however was positive on BSE. One thousand four hundred Ninety nine stocks advanced, while 935 stocks declined. One hundred and eight stocks ended unchanged. On sectoral front, BSE Bankex was the biggest loser, dropping by 1.29% followed by BSE Oil & Gas (down 0.98%) and BSE Realty (down 0.41%). BSE CD index, however, overcame the sluggish trend and jumped 1.56% while BSE Auto, BSE HC, BSE CG and BSE Power were marginally up.

Several index heavyweights lifted the market. Satyam Computer Services led the pack, shooting by 5.95% at Rs170.15. Ranbaxy Laboratories soared 4.43% at Rs252.40, Tata Motors surged 1.89% at Rs159.05, Hindalco Industries flared up by 1.63% at Rs51.65 and Tata Steel jumped by 1.20% at Rs216.85. However, HDFC dropped 2.75% at Rs1,487.55, ICICI Bank slipped 2.12% at Rs448.35, HDFC Bank lost 2.02% at Rs997.60 and Sterlite Industries dipped 1.62% at Rs260.75. Reliance Industries, Grasim Industries, DLF, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Infrastructure and JP Associates slipped marginally.

Over 2.78 crore shares of Reliance Natural Resources changed hands on BSE followed by Satyam Computer Services (2.72 crore shares), Unitech (2.36 crore shares), GVK Power & Infrastructure (2.24 crore shares) and Suzlon Energy (1.71 crore shares).