Sensex ekes out slender gains in dull session

A bad day on Monday was followed by a strong rally on Tuesday. But, today the Indian markets chose to take a break with the two key stock indices ending almost unchanged amid some choppiness. The flat finish comes when the markets looked all set to extend the post-Budget gains.

Markets struggled for direction today despite crude oil prices moderating over the past couple of days and US stocks rallying overnight.



Barring Pharma and IT indexes, all the other BSE sectoral indices ended in the green. The BSE Realty index was the top gainer, rising by 1.8% followed by the BSE Consumer Durables index, which rose 1%. The BSE Auto index gained 0.7%.

The BSE Mid-Cap and the BSE Small-Cap outperformed the benchmark indices. Both the indices gained 0.6% and 0.8% respectively.

"Early week jitters over political uncertainty were crushed after the Congress and the DMK settled all their differences over the seat-sharing issue. Most of the good news on this front was factored in on Tuesday.

As a result, the key indices lost direction and turned choppy. Near-term domestic events to watch out for will be the IIP and inflation figures, apart from the mid-quarter RBI review," says Amar Ambani, Head of Research (India Private Clients) - IIFL.

The BSE Sensex gained 30 points to end at 18,470, touching the day's high and low at Rs. 18,583 and Rs. 18,303, while the NSE Nifty gained 10 points to close at 5, 531.

The NSE Nifty recorded an intra day high of Rs. 5,563 and low of Rs. 5,477.

Among the top gainers were Rel Com, Rel Capital, Sail, Bajaj Auto, Rel Infra, DLF and ICICI Bank, while Cipla, Sterlite Inds, NTPC, Jindal Steel, Hindustan Unilever, Infosys, Bharti Airtel and HDFC were among the losers.

The European markets were trading mixed, the FTSE index was down 0.4%, CAC index was flat and DAX index also was up 0.4%.

Outside the frontline indices, the big gainers in the broader market were Bajaj Fins, BGR Energy, Nestle India and Apollo Tyres. On the other hand, losers included Glenmark, Engineers India, Godrej Cons and P&G.