Markets stuck in narrow range

Markets continued to trade in a narrow range in the last one hour of trade. The Sensex traded in a range of 154 points. At 1.45 PM the Sensex was up 4 points at 17,564 and the Nifty advanced 8 points to 5284.

Meanwhile, the European markets opened in the negative territory. The CAC 40 index opened at 3866, down 10 points at 3867, FTSE shed 16 points to open at 5759 and the DAX slipped 10 points at 7275.

Back home most of the sectoral indices were trading on a flat note. The BSE Oil & Gas index which was trading in the red recovered from the intra-day low levels and was up 16 points at 8762. The BSE IT index continued to remain the top sectoral gainer, up 0.72% at 5780. On the other hand consumer durable stocks continued to witness the intense selling pressure. The index dropped nearly 3% or 194 points to 6450. Realty, FMCG, auto, power and PSU stocks also reeled under the selling pressure.

Among the Sensex stocks ONGC emerged as the top gainer. The stock gained 2.74% to Rs 263. Cipla added 2.26% and was at Rs 323 and Mahindra & Mahindra also jumped 2% and was trading at Rs 647. Sterlite Industries, Tata Power, Infosys, Bajaj Auto, Larsen & Toubro and Wipro were also among the gainers on the charts. Meanwhile Bharti Airtel, held its position as the top loser, the stock declined 3.17% to Rs 378, Hindustan Unilever shed 2.5% to Rs 315. J P Associates, Jindal Steel, Maruti Suzuki, TCS, DLF, reliance Industries, Reliance Infrastructure, Tata Motors, SBI and ITC were also among the losers on the charts.

The broader markets were also trading on a lacklustre note. The mid-cap index shed 33 points at 6550 and the small-cap index slipped 37 points at 7837.

The overall breadth continued to remain negative as 1618 stocks were declining while 1047 stocks are advancing.