Sensex ends flat amid sharp volatility

After slipping around 70 points in yesterday's session, the market witnessed a strong relief rally in early trades led by across-the-board buying. However, the Sensex witnessed widespread selling as traders tried to book profits by mid morning trades, and the index touched the early low of 17,731. While the market fluctuated sharply thereafter, a firm bullish sentiment came in noon trades as strong buying in heavyweights, capital goods, oil and tech stocks spurred the index to an all-time high of 17,979. But, another round of selling towards the close in capital goods, banking and metal stocks saw the Sensex touch the day's low of 17,709. The Sensex gyrated 270 points during intra-day trades and finally ended the session with a marginal loss of four points at 17,773, whereas the Nifty slipped by 23 points at 5,186.

The market breadth was extremely negative. Of the 2,821 stocks traded on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) 1,825 stocks declined, 9403 stocks advanced and 56 stocks ended unchanged. With the exception of the BSE CG Index, the BSE Oil & Gas Index and the BSE Teck Index, all the other sectoral indices were down around 0.5-2% each. The BSE Bankex Index, the BSE CD Index and the BSE PSU Index lost over 2% each while the BSE FMCG Index, the BSE Metal Index and the BSE Realty Index declined by more than 1% each.

Selling was rampant in several index heavyweight stocks. NTPC triggered a major sell-off in the market and tumbled by 5.28% at Rs214. Among the other major losers, Hindalco dropped 3.70% at Rs169, Tata Steel declined by3.68% at Rs833, ITC lost 3.27% at Rs179, ACC shed 3.11% at Rs1,177, Tata Motors slumped by 2.85% at Rs776, ICICI Bank slipped by 2.31% at Rs1,037 and Reliance Energy dipped by 2.08% at Rs1,447. However, L&T managed to report gains and jumped by 6.66% at Rs3,089, Bharti Airtel advanced 3.32% at Rs993, BHEL added 2.96% at Rs2,154 and Reliance Industries gained 2.53% at Rs2,484.

Over 9.97 crore Power Grid Corporation shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Ispat Industries (5.29 crore shares), Himachal Futuristic communication (1.61 crore shares), IFCI (1.49 crore shares) and Nagarjuna Fertilisers (1.49 crore shares).

Power Grid Corporation was the most actively traded counter on the BSE with a turnover of Rs1,030 crore followed by Reliance Industries (Rs308 crore), Reliance Communication (Rs247 crore), Reliance Energy (Rs213 crore) and L&T (Rs208 crore).