The markets gave up most of their early gains to end the session on a quiet note. After gaining nearly 250 points at opening bell, the Sensex ended the day at 18032, higher by 33 points and the Nifty ended at 5415, up six points. The midcap index ended at 7640, higher by six points and the smallcap index ended at 9636, down four points.
The session began well, with the indices retracing all the previous session's losses on the back of a bounceback on the Asian front. Markets in our neighbourhood were cheering Bernanke's comments about the economy and Fed's willingness to take action to spur an economic revival. It may be recalled that markets across Asia, including India, had a nervous Friday, correcting in the region of 1-2% each, ahead of the Fed comment on the world's largest economy.
But the similarity ended there. For while the Asian markets gained anywhere between 1% and 2% at the close of trade, our markets struck a discordant note to end near the lows of the day. The Sensex, which had gained more than 200 points at opening bell, trended lower with every passing hour. The BSE benchmark, infact, fleetingly slipped into the red and below the 18k mark to touch an intra-day low of 17960 during the noon session before clawing back towards the fag end to register a respectable close. In all, the BSE benchmark shaved off nearly 200 points from the highs of the day. And the unenthusiastic start across Europe, with the FTSE, CAC and DAX having a flat session, did not help matters either.
The day clearly belonged to the metal pack. Tata Steel strengthened by 3.4% at Rs 527 after the company signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Thailand’s Sahaviriya Steel Industries, setting the scope of a possible deal for the sale of its Teesside Cast Products (TCP) facility for around $500 million. The positive sentiment seemed to have rubbed on to the peer group, with Hindalco gaining 1.9% at Rs 166 and Jindal Steel adding 1.5% at Rs 700. Among the other notable gainers, Bharti Airtel raced ahead by 2.1% at Rs 322 and ONGC added 2% at Rs 1344.
On the loser's side, ITC weakened by 1.2% at Rs 159, BHEL shed 1.1% at Rs 2441 and TCS lost 1% at Rs 846. And there was no silver lining for RIL; the index heavyweight edged lower by 0.2% at Rs 947.
The market breadth was weak. Out of 3058 stocks traded on the BSE, there were 1348 advancing stocks as against 1599 declines.
