Strong comeback at tail end

After opening 13 points higher than the previous close, the 30-stock Sensex soon turned negative. The bellwether remained subdued during the major part of the day and traded more than 200 points lower, as investors booked profits. Teck and information technology (IT) stocks took the major beating. The index faltered by afternoon and slipped to the day's low of 16,622—244 points below the previous close. While the market fluctuated sharply thereafter, firm bullish sentiment and strong buying in heavyweights in late trades helped the Sensex erase its losses. The Sensex finally ended the session 0.55% or 92 points up at 16,959. Nifty was up by 24 points at 5,027.

The market breadth was negative, as 1,698 stocks declined and 1,023 stocks advanced. Seventy seven stocks ended unchanged. Nine of the 13 sectoral indices ended in green. BSE FMCG advanced 3.17%, BSE Metal was up 2.38%, BSE Bankex jumped 1.94%, BSE CG was up 1.66% and BSE Power gained 1.32%. However, BSE Teck dropped 3.78% followed by BSE IT that was down 1.10% and BSE Realty declining by 0.90%.

Among gainers, Hindalco Industries jumped 6.05% to Rs125.30, Hindustan Unilever gained 5.55% to Rs281.65 and Reliance Infrastructure soared 5.17% to Rs1283.95, while ITC, Bharat Heavy Electricals, Sterlite Industries, ICICI Bank, Tata Steel, HDFC Bank, Larsen & Toubro, Mahindra & Mahindra, State Bank of India, ONGC and HDFC gained more than 1% each. However, Reliance Communications slipped 10.64% to Rs268.25, Bharti Airtel slumped 10.22% to Rs359.40, ACC shed 2.07% to quote at Rs797.50, Wipro lost 1.61% to trade at Rs598.70, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries declined 1.52% to Rs1,407.50 and DLF was down 1.38% to Rs416.90.

On turnover front, over 1.78 crore Ispat Industries shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Bharti Airtel (1.48 crore shares), Unitech (1.43 crore shares), Reliance Communications (1.17 crore shares), Idea Cellular (1.16 crore shares) and Suzlon Energy (1.10 crore shares).