Market ends flat

The Sensex touched yet another peak at 14,698 in early trades on the back of buying in front-line stocks. The index opened firm at 14,691 and immediately touched an all-time high adding 48 points to its kitty. However the Sensex slipped on weak Asian markets and shed a major portion of its early gains. Thereafter the market remained range-bound with a negative bias and slipped further to touch the day's low of 14523. Strong buying at lower levels in the afternoon saw the Sensex pare its losses and end the session at 14652, up nine points. The Nifty closed at 4223, down a point.

The market breadth was negative. Of the 2,705 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,623 stocks declined, 1,022 stocks advanced and 60 stocks ended unchanged. Most of the sectoral indices ended in the red. The BSE Metal index shed 1.60% at 9275 followed by the BSE Auto index (down 0.35% at 5789) and the BSE HC index (down 0.17% at 3901).

Among the Sensex stocks 14 stocks failed to attract buying support while 16 stocks closed with gains. ICICI Bank gained 1.58% at Rs998, Maruti Udyog added 1.28 % at Rs963 and Reliance Energy advanced 1.26% at Rs566. Ranbaxy at Rs422, Reliance Communication at Rs489, SBI at Rs1,205, BHEL at Rs2,508, HDFC Bank at Rs1,808 and L&T at Rs1,753 closed in positive territory with small gains. However, Hindalco shed 3.79% at Rs175, Bajaj Auto slipped 2.34% at Rs3,008, HLL was down 1.13% at Rs205 and Bharti Airtel declined 1.10% at Rs765. Hero Honda, Wipro, Satyam Computers and Tata Motors ended with marginal losses.

Metal scrips continued to reel under sustained selling pressure. Shree Precoated Steels tumbled 3.79% at Rs175, Jindal Steel dropped 2.27% at Rs2,524, Sterlite Industries shed 1.77% at Rs480 and Maharashtra Seamless declined 1.55% at Rs520.

Over 58.11 lakh SAIL shares changed hands on the BSE followed by IDBI (40.45 lakh shares), IDFC (24.33 lakh shares), RCF (20.92 lakh shares) and Indian Hotels (18.01 lakh shares).

Value-wise Satyam Computers registered a turnover of Rs87 crore on the BSE followed by Reliance Communication (Rs86 crore), SAIL (Rs67 crore), BHEL (Rs54 crore) and Century Textiles (Rs52 crore).