The five-day winning streak has come to an abrupt end. After accumulating as much as 344 points in the past five trading sessions, the Sensex shed 54 points to end at 17690 and the Nifty closed at 5308, down 14 points. The mid-cap index edged marginally lower at 7151 and the smallcap space closed virtually unchanged at 9244.
The markets were seemingly caught in a zone of uncertainty throughout the day, with the Sensex trading in a tight range of about 100 points before ending near the lower end of the range. But considering the situation worldwide, we did not have such a bad day after all. For this was a day when the Shanghai slipped more than 2%, Hang Seng shed 1.5% and other Asian markets lost upto 1% as a decline in the commodity prices weighed on investor sentiment. And European counterparts shaved off around a per cent each on lingering fears over the health of indebted euro-zone countries besides Greece.
Jaiprakash Associates weakened by 4.1% at Rs 152, Maruti extended its losses post the Q4 results, shedding 4% at Rs 1280 and DLF weakened by 2% at Rs 316. Index hevyweight Reliance Industries recovered considerable ground from its day's lows of Rs 1020, but still ended down 0.9% at Rs 1060.
The major result candidates of the day also ended in the red. Private sector lender Yes Bank ended 2% lower at Rs 275 despite reporting a 74.79% rise in net profit to Rs 140.03 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 31 and announcing a dividend of 15%. And IDFC shrugged off a 96% jump in Q4 net to Rs 228.11 crore to end at Rs 264, down 2.8%.
On the other hand, ONGC appreciated by 2.8% at Rs 1045 on the government's plans to hike its gas price to $4/mmBtu, Reliance Infra gained 1.7% at Rs 1134 and M&M added 1.6% at Rs 537.
And there were many standalone gainers in the broader markets. Among the midcap stocks, TVS Motors, National Fertilizer and Novartis added between 3% and 5% each, while the smallcap space saw the likes of Jindal Poly Films, NIIT and Jindal Drilling soaring around 10% each.
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The market breadth turned negative at close. Out of 2991 stocks traded on the BSE, there were 1,288 advancing stocks as against 1605 declines.
Maruti topped the value charts on the BSE with a total turnover of Rs 77.11 crore. This was followed by Sterlite (Rs 62.53 crore), Tata Steel (Rs 58.00 crore), SBI (Rs 57.96 crore) and Tata Motors (Rs 57.67 crore).
Jaiprakash Associates (0.95 million) led the volume charts with trades of 2.96 million. It was followed by DLF (1.67 million), Sterlite (1.29 million), Tata Steel (1.25 million) and Hindalco (1.25 million)