Sensex survives steep slide...Ends slightly down

The BSE Sensex closed at 19,545, down 39 points over the previous close.

The Indian market managed to escape a broad selloff to close marginally in the red on Tuesday, as investors welcomed better-than-expected results from cement majors ACC and UltraTech and European equities recovered.

Traded volume and turnover were substantially higher from the previous session, as traders started adjusting positions ahead of the F&O expiry on Thursday. However, market breadth was negative throughout the day.



The mood on Indian bourses remained jittery after the arrest of the high-profile politicians in the 2G and CWG scams on Monday. Also, Asian markets were mostly weak, led by Japan, Hong Kong and China. Wall Street too had finished flat.

As a result, the key benchmarks remained under pressure right from the start and hit intraday lows in early afternoon trade. But, things started looking up from then on and the two main indices hit intraday high in late trade before turning lower again.

The BSE Sensex closed at 19,545, down 39 points over the previous close. It had earlier been as low as 19,306 and as high as 19,626. It had opened at 19,596.

The NSE Nifty finished at 5,864, down 10 points from the last close. It earlier touched a day's low of 5,791 and a day's high of 5,893. It had opened at 5,876.

HUL, Maruti, Sterlite, Reliance Infra, M&M, DLF, HDFC Bank, Reliance Capital, Axis Bank and SAIL were among the top losers in the Sensex and the Nifty today.

On the other hand, Bharti Airtel, Hindalco, Tata Motors, RCOM, Jindal Steel, Siemens, Grasim, Dr. Reddy's, Ambuja Cement, BPCL and ACC were the main gainers in the two key indices.

The BSE Small-Cap index and the BSE Mid-Cap index finished virtually unchanged.