Despite a weak start, the markets made a marvellous recovery towards the end thanks to cues from the European markets. The Indian bourses started the day on an extremely low note at 17,104 tracking poor global cues and exhibited volatility by moving in the range of 249 points throughout the day.
The index opened and soon slipped to a low of 16,858 owing to weakness in the realty and metal scrips. The markets kept on languishing in the red and several attempts of partial recovery were made in between but however the ground proved too slippery.
Towards the end strength in IT and healthcare stocks helped the index erase most of its losses. The Sensex finally ended at 17,087, down 49 points. The NSE Nifty has ended at 5,124, down 23 points.
The market breadth was extremely negative, out of 2,944 shares traded, 1,705 declined and 1,151 advanced on the BSE.
The midcap and the smallcap indices ended flat.
Among the sectoral indices, IT index gained 1% at 5,305. Patni Computers zoomed 7% to Rs 609 and Rolta India was up 2.5%, respectively.While metal and the realty indices declined 1% each.
Jaiprakash Associates slipped 5% to Rs 133 and Sterlite Industries declined 3%, respectively. The other major losers were Reliance Infrastructure, Hero Honda, HUL, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank, down 1-2% each.
While Bharti Airtel gained 2.5% at Rs 297 and Wipro added 2%, respectively. The other gainers were Maruti, Mahindra & Mahindra and NTPC, up 1% each.
VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS
Tata Steel topped the value chart on the BSE with a turnover of Rs 175.66 crore. It was followed by Sesa Goa (Rs 152.24 crore), Sterlite Industries (Rs 103.04 crore), JSW Steel (Rs 93.37 crore) and RNRL (Rs 93.24 crore).
Filmvity Media led the volume chart on the BSE with trades of 14.18 million shares. It was followed by RNRL (13.85 million), Birla Power (12.77 million), S Kumar Nation (7.37 million) and Bank of Rajasthan (6.53 million).