Profit taking weighs market down

The market appeared to be heading towards a negative close, after a strong bout of profit-taking towards the close shaved off nearly 170 points from the day’s gains. After resuming with a positive gap of 51 points at 14816 the Sensex witnessed strong optimism for a better part of the trading session. While the action in several counters held the market firm above 14800 levels in the first half of the trading session, the index notched up further gains in the afternoon to touch the day's high of 14956. However, the market slipped towards the close as weakness in select heavyweight, information technology, teck and automobile stocks pared the gains. The Sensex ended 21 points up at 14786, while Nifty added 15 points to its kitty to close at 4391.

Market breadth on the BSE, the number of advancing shares to declining one, was positive. Of the 2,723 stocks traded, 1,686 stocks advanced, whereas 964 stocks declined. Seventy three stocks ended unchanged. Of the 13 sectoral indices on the BSE, eight ended positive while five indices ended negative. BSE CD, the consumer durable index, advanced the most--4.24% --followed by BSE Realty (up 2.91%), BSE Metal (up 2.59%) and BSE Oil & Gas (up 2.40%). The five losing sectoral indices of the day were BSE IT, BSE Teck, BSE Auto, BSE FMCG and BSE HC.

Select blue chips notched significant gains. Sterlite Industries rose 5.66% to Rs646.70, DLF advanced 3.82% to Rs338, Reliance Industries climbed 2.78% to Rs2,084.95, ONGC surged 2.61% to Rs1,068.05, Tata Steel scaled up 2.38% to Rs397.15, Bharat Heavy Electricals added 1.54% to reach Rs2,235.30, Hindalco Industries jumped 1.33% to Rs87.80 and National Thermal Power Corporation was up 1.03% to Rs196.95. Among laggards, Tata Motors tumbled 7.77% to Rs313.85 and Sun Pharmaceutical Industries dropped 3.52% to Rs1,100.35 while Tata Consultancy Services, HDFC, Grasim Industries and Infosys Technologies ended with loss of 2% each. Hero Honda, Reliance Communications, ITC and Wipro closed in negative territory.

Over 2.53 crore shares of Rishab Development changed hands on the BSE followed by Suzlon Energy (1.95 crore shares), IFCI (1.90 crore shares), Unitech (1.75 crore shares) and GMR Infrastructure (1.60 crore shares).