Sensex ends flat with negative bias; M&M drops

Indian markets continued to fall for the second day on Monday. The benchmark index Sensex ended the volatile session on a flat note with negative bias as sell-off was seen in PSU, capital goods and banking stocks, while IT and teck gained marginally. Broader markets also traded flat. It opened in the red zone amid negative Asian shares and continued to trade lower on profit booking seen in frontliners. In the second half, index recovered by moving into the positive terrain on select buying amid volatility. Finally, it closed on a quite note after touching a high of 17,195.49 and low of 17,061.14.

At the close, the 30-share benchmark index, BSE Sensex ended flat with a decline of 1.63 points or 0.01% at 17,164.99, 14 components registering drop. Meanwhile, the broad based NSE Nifty went down by 8.10 or 0.16% at 5,128.90 with 30 components registering drop.

On global front, European stocks dropped and US index futures fell on concern China will take more steps to cool its economy and as Moody`s Investors Service said the US and UK are closer to losing their AAA credit ratings. Whereas, Asian stocks fell for the first time in three days, led by energy and commodity producers, on concern China will boost measures to cool economic growth that has been driving a global recovery.

Meanwhile, Wholesale price based inflation rose to 9.89% in February from 8.56% in the previous month due to increase in prices of certain food items such as sugar and the hike in excise duty on fuel announced last month.

Sensex Movers

ICICI Bank contributed fall of 19.84 points in the Sensex. It was followed by Housing Development Finance Corporation (13.48 points), State Bank Of India (11.15 points), Mahindra & Mahindra (8.99 points) and Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (8.54 points).

However, Infosys Technologies contributed rise of 18.39 points in the Sensex. It was followed by Reliance Industries (14.02 points), Tata Consultancy Services (13.96 points), Hindustan Unilever (8.27 points) and Wipro (7.44 points).

Biggest gainers in the 30-share index were Wipro (2.71%), Hindustan Unilever (2.62%), Jaiprakash Associates (2.38%), Tata Consultancy Services (2.27%), Infosys Technologies (1.07%), and Tata Motors (0.91%).

On the other hand, Mahindra & Mahindra (2.77%), Reliance Infrastructure (2.33%), Sun Pharmaceutical Industries (1.77%), ACC (1.61%), Housing Development Finance Corporation (1.46%), and State Bank Of India (1.45%) were the major losers in the Sensex.

Mid & Small-cap Space

The BSE Midcap index was at 6651.26 down by 49.59 points or by 0.74%. The major losers were Reliance MediaWorks (2.32%), Aban Offshore (1.93%), A I A Engineering (1.39%), Alfa-Laval (India) (1.02%) and Core Projects and Technologies (0.15%).

The BSE Smallcap index was at 8362.2 down by 70.29 points or by 0.83%. The major losers were Abhishek Industries (2.57%), Aarti Industries (1.95%), A B G Shipyard (1.22%), Action Construction Equipment (1%) and A B G Infralogistics (0.27%).

Sectors in Limelight

The Capital Goods index was at 13,634.19, down by 149.84 points or by 1.09%. The major losers were A B B (2.43%), BEML (1.92%), A I A Engineering (1.39%), Bharat Electronics (1.31%) and Bharat Bijlee (1.11%).

The Bankex index was at 10,235.13, down by 106.07 points or by 1.03%. The major losers were Federal Bank (2.78%), Canara Bank (1.98%), Bank Of India (1.77%), Allahabad Bank (1.1%) and Bank Of Baroda (0.9%).

The Realty index was at 3,361.10, down by 26.82 points or by 0.79%. The major losers were Indiabulls Real Estate (2.84%), Mahindra Lifespace Developers (1.36%), Anant Raj Industries (1.13%), Ansal Properties and Infrastructure (1.11%) and D L F (0.58%).

On the other hand, the IT index was at 5,411.69, up by 73.34 points or by 1.37%. The major gainers were H C L Technologies (2.7%), Tata Consultancy Services (2.27%), Oracle Financial Services Software (1.15%), Infosys Technologies (1.07%) and Patni Computer Systems (0.78%).

Market Breadth

Market breadth was negative with 989 advances against 1,860 declines.

Value and Volume Toppers

Man Infraconstruction topped the value chart on the BSE with a turnover of Rs. 1,266.77 million. It was followed by Texmo Pipes and Products (Rs. 1,008.24 million), Aban Offshore (Rs. 967.96 million) and Shree Renuka Sugars (Rs. 768.86 million).

The volume chart was led by Cals Refineries with trades of over 27.54 million shares. It was followed by Shree Renuka Sugars (10.05 million), Tamboli Capital (8.55 million) and Texmo Pipes and Products (6.60 million).