Sensex ends flat; metal stocks rally

The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 33 points at 13,222, and rallied to a high of 13,295 in late morning trades.

Profit-taking at higher levels saw the index pare gains and move in a narrow range of 60-odd points (13,190 - 13,250) for the major part of the trading day.

The index slipped towards the closing bell to a low of 13,161 - down 134 points from the day's high. The Sensex eventually ended nearly flat at 13,183 - down six points.

The BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices were up around 1% each at 5517 and 6712, respectively. The Metal index surged 3.7% to 9331.

The market breadth was positive - out of 2,633 stocks traded, 1,532 advanced, 1,038 declined and 63 were unchanged today.

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Hindalco soared over 4% to Rs 142, and Tata Steel surged over 3% to Rs 512.

Other metal stocks like Hindustan Zinc, Jindal Saw Pipes, Jindal Steel, Maharashtra Seamless, Nalco, SAIL and Sterlite Industries were up 3-6% each.

Bharti Airtel, BHEL and Cipla advanced over 1% each to Rs 773, Rs 2,493 and Rs 236, respectively.

Ranbaxy plunged 3.5% to Rs 345, and Dr.Reddy's dropped 2.5% to Rs 701.

ACC shed 2% to Rs 732. HLL slipped 1.7% to Rs 205. HDFC and Reliance Communications declined around 1.5% each to Rs 1,583 and Rs 413, respectively.

Gujarat Ambuja and HDFC Bank were down over 1% each to Rs 108 and Rs 980, respectively.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Indiabulls Real Estate topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 190 crore followed by Indiabulls (Rs 171.10 crore), MindTree (Rs 136.40 crore), Tata Steel (Rs 133.55 crore) and BHEL (Rs 99.70 crore).

Reliance Natural Resources led the volume chart with trades of around 1.31 crore shares followed by IFCI (1.29 crore), debutant Gremach Infra (1.03 crore), Indiabulls  Real Estate (63.80 lakh) and SAIL (52.42 lakh).