Sensex touches new high of 11,986 pts

Ends lower at 11,896 points on FII selling pressure.

Strong all-round buying in early-trade took most stock-market indices to new highs on Wednesday, but selling by FIIs during the later part saw a 185-point volatility in the Sensex on Wednesday.

The BSE benchmark ended at 11,896, up 74 points or 0.63 per cent over yesterday's closing. In an indication of deceleration setting in, the market-breadth turned negative for the first time since the upward movement started three days ago.

Sentiments were bullish at the start of the day on the BSE, as the Sensex opened nearly 60 points above yesterday's close. A steady climb by all indices for the first two hours pulled the Sensex to a new all-time high of 11,986, just fourteen points short of the 12,000 mark.

However, with FIIs selling nearly Rs 300 crore worth of equities in the spot market, the market remained highly volatile with the Sensex dropping to a intra-day low of 11,799 before ending just 16 points above the opening mark.

The gains were lower on all the other non-sectoral indices, indicating a strong large-cap bias in Wednesday's buying. Nifty's gains were lower by 13 basis points at 0.5 per cent and the broader BSE 500 index moved up just 0.41 per cent.

Indicating the profit-booking, most of the losers on Wednesday were the gainers over the last two days, with HCL Tech, which gave disappointing numbers in the morning, leading the pack with a 7.36 per cent drop to Rs 602.85.

Among the other IT losers were Wipro and Infosys, which went down by 1.9 and 1.7 per cent respectively. The IT index was also the biggest loser on the BSE with a 1.45 drop followed closely by the auto index which lost 0.99 per cent.

The gainers were led by the oil & gas and metal stocks whose indices gained 2.3 and 2.2 per cent respectively. Nalco (up 4.59 per cent to Rs 325), Tata Steel (up 3.25 per cent to Rs 608.75) and Grasim led the metal gainers on the Nifty on Wednesday.

Among the petroleum stocks which moved up on Wednesday was Reliance which put on 3.42 per cent to end at Rs 921.80 and ONGC which improved its yesterday's tally by another 1.76 per cent to Rs 1,330.05.

The overall market breadth was negative on Wednesday with nearly 51 per cent of the stocks moving down on the BSE with around 46 per cent moving in the other direction.