Market loses steam at fag end

The market appeared to be heading towards a negative close after a strong bout of profit taking towards the close shaved off nearly 228 points from the day’s high. Starting the day with a huge gap of 126 points at 9550, Sensex witnessed strong optimism till afternoon. Sustained buying in several counters held the market firm above 9600 levels in the first half of the trading session. In afternoon session, the index notched up further gains to touch the day's high of 9699. However, the market slid towards the close, as weakness in select heavyweights, metal, consumer durables and public sector units stocks dragged the index to an intra-day low of 9403, down 21 points for the day. Sensex however ended the session with marginal gains of 47 points at 9471, while the Nifty lost a point to close at 2939.

The market breadth was negative. Of the 2,636 stocks that traded on the BSE, 1,395 stocks declined, 1,134 stocks advanced and 107 stocks ended unchanged. Most of the 13 sectoral indices on BSE remained marginally up or below their yesterday’s close. BSE Metal dropped 2.99% followed by BSE CD (down 1.45%) and BSE PSU (down 0.81%). BSE Bankex was the only one, which posted perceptible (2.18%) gains for the day.

Among Sensex stocks, Bankex major HDFC Bank was the leading gainer, soaring 6.31% at Rs940.50 for the day. ICICI Bank advanced 2.44% at Rs355.10, HDFC jumped 2.33% at Rs1,564.45, Bharat Heavy Electricals shot up by 2.25% at Rs1,444.35, Ranbaxy Laboratories added 1.83% at Rs164, while Bharti Airtel, Wipro, Mahindra & Mahindra, State Bank of India and Reliance Industries closed with marginal gains. Among laggards, JP Associates tumbled 6.77% at Rs78.55, Hindalco Industries shed 4.61% at Rs49.70 and Reliance Infrastructure declined by 4.23% at Rs508.15, whereas Reliance Communications, Tata Steel, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, Tata Motors and ONGC lost 2-3% each.

Over 2.12 crore shares of Unitech changed hands on BSE followed by Suzlon Energy (1.56 crore shares), Reliance Natural Resources (1.52 crore shares), Cals Refineries (82.92 lakh shares) and Satyam Computer Services (68 lakh shares).