The markets closed flat, but with a negative bias, today. At close, the Sensex was down 38 points at 19,573, while the Nifty slipped eight points at 5,883 (provisional).
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(Updated at 1430 hrs)
After a surge in the markets in the afternoon session, which was sustained for sometime, the markets pared gains and dipped into the red. However, they were back in the green within a very short period. The Sensex gained 7 points at 19,619, while the Nifty notched up only 2 points at 5,893.
A flat but positive opening was followed by consecutive sessions of losses, wherein the Sensex touched the day's low of 19,537during morning trades. In the afternoon, the bourses inched into the green, but saw fluctuations between the positive and negative territories. A little into the late afternoon session, the Sensex scaled the day's high of 19,665. Thereafter, a decline was noticed again.
On the Sensex, non-banking financial company HDFC added 2.5% at Rs 715, followed by Hindalco Industries at Rs 217 up 2% and Mahindra & Mahindra at Rs 735 up 1%. Wipro, Tata Steel, Tata Power, L&T and SBI gained 1% each.
On the losing side, NTPC was down 2.4% at Rs 187, while ONGC at Rs 292 and TCS at Rs 1,200 were both down 2%. Maruti Suzuki, Sterlite Industries and HDFC Bank declined 1% each.
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Brisk trades ensured the Mid-cap and Small-cap indices advanced more than 1% each. The Mid-cap index was at 7,282, while the Small-cap moved up to 8,913.
Realty stocks were traded robustly, and the index advanced 2% to 2,547. The Capital Goods index continued to remain one of the top sectoral gainers, and the index moved up almost 1% to 13,757. Healthcare stocks also remained in the limelight, as the index added 0.6% to 6,152.
"We expect the pharma sector to close FY2011 with a mixed 4QFY2011 performance. We expect our universe (14 companies) to post 11% y-o-y top-line growth, despite the 1.4% y-o-y appreciation in rupee against the US dollar on an average during the quarter," Sarabjit Kaur Nangra, Vice-President (Research), Angel Broking, commented on the healthcare and pharmaceutical sector.
Unitech was the top gainer on the Realty index, up 6% at Rs 48, followed by Indiabulls Real Estate at Rs 143 and Parsvnath Developers at Rs 47 both up 3%. Ackruti City added 2%, and Orbit corp and Sobha Developers both up 1%.
The Oil & Gas and IT indices were the laggards in trade, at 10,221 and 6,623 down 0.5% and 0.4% respectively. Devangshu Datta, a technical analyst, maintained the CNX IT index may remain bearish in May, and the index value may drop to 7,200 during the month.