Flat start, down day for Sensex

After a tepid start and mostly rangebound session, the Indian market slipped late in the day despite further decline in food inflation and not-so-bad global cues. European markets picked up pace after a slow start and markets in Hong Kong and China recovered.



"The NSE Nifty failed to make much headway towards the near-term milestone of 5500 as strength in Real Estate, IT and Auto was countered by weakness in Oil & Gas, Power, Pharma, Metals and Banking,", says Amar Ambani, Vice President, Research IIFL.

Also, the Mid-cap stocks lost momentum after holding firm for most part of the session. But, Small-Cap stocks continued to hog the limelight.

Market breadth, which was in favour of the bulls in the first half, turned neutral in the last half an hour as selling intensified.

Finally, the BSE Sensex slipped by 45 points to end at 18,173, while the NSE Nifty shed 21 points to close at 5,447.

The Sensex had been as high as 18,295 and as low as 18,156 after opening at 18,234. The Nifty touched a high of 5,487 and a low of 5,443 after opening at 5,470.

Select pocket in the market saw sustained buying. Shipping was the biggest winner today with stocks like SCI, GE Shipping, Essar Shipping, Varun Shipping and Mercator Lines on fire.

Among the notable losers included RCOM, Reliance Infra, ONGC, M&M, ICICI Bank, Hero Honda, RIL, Idea, Abbuja Cement, Gail, IDFC, RPower, Sun Pharma, Axis Bank and PowerGrid.

The top gainers in the main indices today included the likes of SBI, Tata Motors, TCS, Maruti, Unitech and HCL Tech.

Small-Cap continues was the place to be in. UB Engineering, Andrew Yule, Bombay Burmah, Glodyne Tech, Kalyani Steel, Natco Pharma, Subex, Bharati Shipyard, Indowind Energy, Karuturi, Halonix, Everonn, Shasun Chem, Panacea Biotec, ABG Shipyard, Ramsarup Inds, Zee News, HSIL, KPIT Cummins and Fedders Lloyd being among the top gainers.

Future Capital, Resurgere Mines, Talwalkar, Jyothi Labs, Infinite Computer, Dhanalaskhmi Bank, Aegis Logistics, Strides Arcolab, Ahluwalia Contractors, TV Today and Abbott India were the notable losers in the BSE Small-Cap index.

Nagarjuna Construction, Aurobindo Pharma, HMT, Bayer Crop, Nestle India, REI Agro, Eicher Motors, Indian Hotels and Rallis India were the other big losers in the BSE 500 index today.

Mcleod Russel, Bosch, Pipavav, Godrej Properties, Britannia, UTV, Uttam Galva and Wockhardt were the notable gainers in the broader market.

Markets in Asia ended mixed. The Nikkei in Japan gained 1.7%, Australia's S&P/ASX ended higher by 0.5%, the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong ended flat and Shanghai SE Composite lost 0.7%.

European indices were trading up ahead of interest rate decisions from the UK and EU central banks. The DAX in Germany was up 0.5%, the CAC 40 index in France was up 1% and the FTSE in the UK was up 0.4%.