Market flat almost

The market appeared to be heading towards a negative close after a strong bout of profit taking towards the close shaved off nearly 153 points from the day’s high.

Starting the day with a positive gap of 31 points at 15040, the Sensex witnessed strong optimism till afternoon. Sustained buying in several counters held the market firm above 15200 levels in the first half of the trading session. In afternoon session, the index notched up further gains to touch the day's high of 15257. However, the market slid towards the close, as weakness in select heavyweights, fast moving consumer goods, realty and oil stocks erased 200 points from the index’ day’s high. The Sensex however ended the session with marginal gains of 95 points at 15104, while Nifty gained 14 points to close at 4587.

The market breadth was positive. Of the 2,891 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,519 stocks advanced, 1,318 stocks declined. 54 stocks ended unchanged. Most of the sectoral indices on the BSE remained above their yesterday’s close. BSE CG gained 2.95% followed by BSE IT (up 2.61%), BSE Auto (up 2.49%) and BSE Teck (up 1.58%). However, BSE FMCG (down 2.34%), BSE Realty, BSE Oil & Gas and BSE Metal closed with marginal losses.

Among the Sensex stocks, Grasim Industries was the leading gainer, soaring 6.06% at Rs2,510.70 for the day. Tata Motors advanced 5.31% at Rs389.05, Bharat Heavy Electricals jumped 5.30% at Rs2287.40, Larsen & Toubro shot up by 4.35% at Rs1519.30, Infosys Technologies added 3.91% at Rs1,690.55, while Tata Power, Hindalco Industries, Mahindra & Mahindra, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries and ACC closed with marginal gains. Among laggards, ITC tumbled 5.46% at Rs191.40, Reliance Infrastructure shed 3.66% at Rs1,226.80 and State Bank of India declined 3.09% at Rs1,817.90. DLF, Reliance Industries and Tata Steel lost 1% each.

Over 8.61 crore shares of Cals Refineries changed hands on the BSE followed by JP Hydro (3.20 crore shares), Unitech (3.05 crore shares), Satyam Computer Services (2.65 crore shares) and Ispat Industries (2.28 crore shares).