It was a flat end to a rather volatile session of trade. The Sensex swung in a range of nearly 200 points before ending virtually unchanged at 20104, lower by 12 points and the Nifty ended at 6029, down six points.
The markets had a sideways start, what with the Wall Street having a subdued session and the markets closer home having a mixed look to them. Volatility set in during the course of the day on the back of creeping weakness in the Asian and European markets and rollover of positions ahead of the derivatives expiry scheduled on Thursday. The Hang Seng and Nikkei shed around a percent each at close, while the Straits Times, Seoul and Taiwan Weighted indices lost upto half a percent each. And FTSE and DAX were down in the region of a percent each in mid-day trades. A bout of short-covering at close was what resurrected the markets from the morass of the afternoon session.
The gainers on the Sensex were Mahindra & Mahindra and Reliance Infrastructure up 2.5%, DLF and NTPC adding 2%, Jindal Steel, ACC and L&T gaining 1% each, The Sensex losers are HDFC down 2%, RIL losing 1%, Hindustan Unilever, Maruti Suzuki, Hindalco, TCS and Sterlite losing 0.7% each.
In the broader markets, the smallcap closed at 10,300, down 0.07% and the midcap index shut shop at 8,158, losing 0.04%. The benchmark index closed down 0.3%, underperforming the broader markets. The gainers in the smallcap space were Tanla Solutions up nearly 19%, Jindal World adding 14% and Astral Poly Technik gaining nearly 14%. In the midcap space the movers were Shriram City Union Finance up 12%, Aventis Pharma moving up nearly 7% and Persistent System adding 5%.
Shares of the ADAG pack were in limelight today. Anil Ambani-led Reliance Power closed up nearly 2% at Rs 163 after the company's announcement that it aims to become the country's largest private sector power generating company by 2015.Reliance Infrastructure closed up 2.5%, Reliance Capital ended flat,Reliance Natural Resources shut shop gaining 0.7%. However defying the trend Reliance Broadcast Network fell 1.7 per % on BSE.
The market breadth was negative. Of the total 3087 stocks traded on the BSE, 1620 stocks declined while 1326 advanced.
