The markets slid significantly towards the end in a session that was marked by a high degree of volatility. The Sensex oscillated in a range of more than 300 points between hope of building on the previous session's gains and the despair of facing continued resistance around the 20k mark to end around the lows of the day. The Sensex ended shy of the 20k mark at 19,983, weaker by 185 points and the Nifty just managed to cling on to the 6000 mark at 6027, down 48 points. Meanwhile, the broader markets outperformed the benchmark indices; the mid-cap index pared its early gains to end flat at 8291277, up by a mere four points and the small-cap index also surrendered its strength to end at 10,638, up 25 points.
The markets had a gap-up opening on the back of a decent set of cues from the global front. The Dow had risen 0.73% at 11,143 and Nasdaq added 0.48% at 2,480 in overnight trades. The Asian markets took the cue, with the Hang Seng rising 0.65% and Nikkei gaining 0.5% in early trades. And in the process, the markets seem to have confidently put behind the jitters seen on Monday morning and formed a intermittent base around those lows of 19700 levels. But the confidence was short-lived as the markets slipped below the dotted line in the very initial moments of trade. The indices did test the early highs in noon trades, but were dragged down once again by weakness in IT and realty stocks.
Infosys was the top loser among the IT stocks down 3% to Rs 3012 followed by HCL Technologies, Oracle Financial Services, TCS and Mphasis down more than 1% each. Among the realty stocks, Unitech shed 3% to end the day at Rs 91, followed by Anant Raj Industries, Sobha Developers and DLF down more than 2% each.
Healthcare stocks were the among the gainers; the Healthcare index ended at 6356 up 1% or 64 points. all the sectoral indices ended the day in the red. With IT index being the top loser down 2.29% or 140 points, followed by Realty, metal, Power and Capital Goods indices down more than 1% each.
Biocon was the top gainer among the healthcare stocks, the stock surged to the all time high of Rs 455 up nearly 13% after the company entered into a $350-million (Rs 1,550 crore) strategic alliance with drug-major Pfizer for marketing Biocon’s insulin products. Glenmark pharma, IPCA Laboratories, Apollo Hospital and Lupion were up more than 1.8% each.
The market breadth was marginally negative, out of 3079 stocks traded on the BSE 1487 stocks declined and 1464 stocks had advanced.