Sensex caught in volatility

Today's major news

Tata Steel's Corus gets French rail contract; the stock surged by 2.13%.

Hospira to buy Orchid Chemicals and Pharmaceutical’s unit for $400 million; the stock tumbled 10.35%.

Mahindra & Mahindra acquires stake in two Australian aerospace companies; the stock jumps 2.86%.

Ipca's anti-malarial fixed dose combination pre-qualified by the World Health Organisation; the stock rises 2.70%

Gitanjali Gems acquires 76% stake in Salasar Retail; the stock ends the day 2.12% higher.

Post-market summary

Global signals

European stocks extended their gains in morning trades on Wednesday with banking stocks at forefront; FTSE was trading at 5330, higher by 0.84%, at the time of filing this report.

Among Asian indices, Nikkei, Straits Times and Jakarta Composite closed higher, while Kospi, Hang Seng and Shanghai Composite ended lower. Japan’s Nikkei closed at its 7-week high. SGX Nifty ended the day 39 points higher.

US stock futures opened with marginal gains on Wednesday as all eyes are set on Federal Reserve meet, as investors expect the central bank to stick to its loose monetary policy.

Indian indices

On mixed cues and leads from markets overseas, Sensex opened flat, about 10 points lower, at 16867. Witnessing high it swung by 200 points touching the day’s high of 16996 and the low of 16777. At 1530 hours, the index was 35 points higher at 16877. The NSE benchmark Nifty closed the day only nine points higher at 5042 .

Sensex sentiment

The market breadth was slightly tilled in favour of advancing stocks. Of the 2,890 stocks on the BSE, 1,411 stocks advanced whereas 1,391 stocks fell. Eighty eight stocks closed unchanged.

Sectoral & stock screening

Lacking direction, most of the sector indices ended almost flat. Information technology stocks have been back in the news for some days and the sector index BSE IT was up by 1.64%-- the highest for any index—for the day. BSE TECk was at No 2 slot, rising by 1.59% during the session. BSE Realty was at the bottom of index list posting a loss of 1.21%.

The stocks making news today include Praj Industries that surged by 5.94%, followed by Sterling Biotech that rose by 5.90% and Nagarjuna Construction Company that jumped by 5.43%. Lanco Infrastructure slid 3.81% followed by Indiabulls Real Estate that fell by 3.64% and See Entertainment that shed 3.07%.

Viewing volumes

Wind power company Suzlon Energy was the most traded share with over 1.10 crore shares changing hands on BSE followed by financial institution catering to Industries Industrial Finance Corporation of India (IFCI; 1.10 crore shares), India’s second largest realty company Unitech (0.77 crore shares), leading integrated steel maker Ispat Industries (0.41 crore shares) and world’s sixth largest steel maker Tata Steel (0.32 crore shares).