Market loses at end

The market appeared to be heading towards a negative close after a strong bout of profit taking towards the close shaved off nearly 122 points from the day’s high. Starting the day with a gap of 27 points at 13796, the Sensex witnessed strong optimism till afternoon. Sustained buying in several counters held the market firm above 13800 levels in the first half of the trading session and touched the day's high of 13879. In afternoon, the market slid as weakness in select heavyweights, consumer goods (CG), consumer durables (CD) and information technology (IT) stocks dragged the index to an intra-day low of 13644, down 126 points for the day. The Sensex however ended the session with marginal loss of 12 points at 13757, while the Nifty gained 2 point to close at 4081.



The market breadth was negative. Of the 2,636 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,463 stocks declined, 1079 stocks advanced. 95 stocks ended unchanged. The 13 sectoral indices on the BSE had a mixed trading for the day. BSE Metal gained 1.53% followed by BSE HC (up 1.05%), BSE FMCG (up 1.02%) and BSE OIL & Gas (up 0.91%). However, BSE CD (down 1.43%), BSE CG, BSE IT, BSE Bankex and BSE Realty closed with marginal losses.



Among the Sensex stocks, Reliance Infrastructure was the lead gainer, soaring 2.45% to Rs1,101 for the day. Sun Pharmaceutical Industries advanced 2.39% at Rs1,169.60, Tata Consultancy Services jumped 2.25% to Rs388.60, Sterlite Industries shot up by 2.04% to Rs557.20, ITC added 1.86% to Rs213.50, while Tata Power, HDFC Bank, JP Associates and Reliance Industries closed with marginal gains. Among laggards, Tata Motors tumbled 3.15% to Rs272.30, ICICI Bank shed 2.77% to Rs636.45 and DLF and Mahindra & Mahindra declined 2.02% to Rs278.70 and 722.05 respectively. Infosys, Larsen & Toubro, Hindalco Industries, Hindustan Unilever, Grasim Industries, ONGC and Bharat Heavy Electricals lost 1-2% each.


Over 5.71 crore shares of Unitech changed hands on the BSE followed by Suzlon Energy (2.04 crore shares), Cals Refineries (1.57 crore shares), Mahindra Satyam (1.15 crore shares) and Ispat Industries (0.86 crore shares).