Heavy selling in opening trades saw the Nifty break the psychological 5,000-mark, but regain it at close on good quarterly numbers from market heavyweights.
The Sensex opened in the red on weak cues from Asian markets. The index slipped to a low of 16,608 - falling below the 17K mark after 19 trading sessions. Strong quarterly numbers from Reliance and ITC lifted market sentiment and the index recovered to touch a high of 17,000 - up 392 points from the day's low. However, the index eventually ended at 16,860 - down 191 points (1%).
The NSE Nifty, which, broke the psychological the 5,000-mark and touched a low of 4,955, recovered partially and ended with a loss of 58 points (1%) to 5,036.
The BSE FMCG index, led by heavyweight ITC, bucked overall trend and jumped 1.5% to 2,772. ITC added 2% to Rs 249 following a 27% rise in Q3 net at Rs 1,144 crore.
"The markets may remain volatile till February when a number of PSU IPOs would hit the market", said Mayank Shah, CEO, Anagram Capital.
However, weakness persisted in the BSE realty, IT and bankex indices as they dropped around 1.5% each.
Tata Steel slumped 3.6% to Rs 625. Larsen & Toubro continued to fall following it sQ3 results which were announced yesterday. The stock slipped 3.4% to Rs 1,472.
DLF, Sun Pharma, Jaiprakash Associates, ONGC and ACC shed 2%-3% each. Bharti Airtel slipped marginally as Q3 results dissapointed markets.
IT stocks fell. TCS dropped 2% to Rs 755. Infosys was down 1.8% to Rs 2,573. Wipro ended at Rs 700.
Banking stocks - ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and SBI also declined. ICICI Bank
However, Q3 results helped some stocks to gain in an otherwise volatile market. BHEL gained 3.2% at Rs 2,373 on a 35% jump in the third quarter on FY10.
Market heavyweight, Reliance ended flat at Rs 1,053. Earlier in the day, the company announced a 16% increase in net in the quarter ended December 2009. The net profit stood at Rs 4,008 crore as compared to Rs 3,462 crore in the year ago period.
SpiceJet, Jubilant Organosys and Visa Steel gained on turnaround results in Q3.
The BSE market breadth was negative. Out of 2,937 stocks traded, 69% declined while 29% were on the advancing side.
"we do not see the market going down much, but not much can be said before the RBI policy meet. The markets will take cue from the event", said Angel Broking, Research VP, Sarabjeet Kaur Nangra.
