Sensex turns in another dull performance

Trading on Indian bourses keeps getting more and more lackluster, as investors choose to hold their bets ahead of the Christmas weekend and the year-end factor hurts volumes. We saw yet another muted trading session where the key stock indices refused to break out of a narrow range throughout the day.



Even the broader market remained subdued, leading to a negative market breadth. Only a handful of stocks in the BSE Sensex and the NSE Nifty witnessed a movement of 1% or more today. SAIL was the biggest loser in the Nifty and Sun Pharma was the top gainer. In fact, it would not have mattered much if one had taken a whole day's break after the opening bell.

At the end of the highly boring day, the Sensex closed at 19,982, down 32 points over the previous close. It had earlier touched a day's high of 20,076 and a day's low of 19,939. It had opened at 20,038.

On the other hand, the NSE Nifty finished absolutely flat at 5,980 after touching a day's high of 6,006 and a day's low of 5,964. It had opened at 6,005.

The BSE Small-Cap index and the BSE Mid-Cap index were down 0.1% and 0.2%, respectively.

The market breadth was marginally negative with 1,478 shares falling and 1,326 shares advancing on the BSE.

Major Asian markets ended lower today, notwithstanding the positive close on Wall Street overnight. China’s stocks fell for a second day as the government stepped up efforts to monitor real estate investments and a gauge of lending costs jumped.

Stocks also fell in Hong Kong while the Kospi in Seoul ended flat and the stock benchmark in Sydney posted modest gains. Japanese markets were shut today for a public holiday while markets in Europe were more or less unchanged.

Kiri Dyes, Berger Paints, Simplex Infra, Sintex Inds, D B REALTY, Sun Pharma, Bajaj Hind and Aventis Pharma were among the notable gainers in the broader market.

Outside the two main indices, the key losers were Karuturi Glob, Shree Ashtavina, SAIL, JSW Steel, Gujarat Pipavav, HT Media, Ashok Leyland and Jyothy Lab.