Street ends flat on FII selling

STOCK REPORT

Key share indices gave up most gains in the last half hour of trade and ended flat on basket selling by foreign funds, dealers said.

"Foreign funds sold to book profits and on caution ahead of the US economic data to be released later on Monday. We can expect the bias to remain negative until Nifty closes above 4220," a dealer said.

The US retail sales data will be detailed on Monday while producer prices and industrial production numbers will be out later this week.

Market was up over 1 per cent for most part of the day tracking Asian and the US markets and after DLF said qualified institutional portion of its initial public offer was fully subscribed in the first hour of trade.

Reports earlier in the day said the DLF IPO was subscribed 45 per cent, with most bids at Rs 550 a share.

The Bombay Stock Exchange's 30-share Sensex ended at 14083.41, up 19.60 points, or 0.1 per cent from Friday. Intraday, it moved between 14057.63 and 14259.87.

The National Stock Exchange's 50-share Nifty ended at 4145.60, up 0.60 points. Intraday, it moved between 4134.95 and 4205.20.

Turnover on both the exchanges was roughly Rs 13,170 crore compared with Rs 15,200 crore on Friday.

The CNX Midcap Index ended down 0.4 per cent and the S&P CNX 500 Index was flat.

GAIL India surged 8 per cent during the day on talk the company may announce a bonus share issue. However, the share ended off highs, up 6 per cent at Rs 310 after the company denied any such plans.

Hindustan Petroleum Corp closed up 5 per cent at Rs 275 as crude oil prices fell over 3 per cent at $64.76 a barrel on Friday on Nymex. Bharat Petroleum Corp was up 2.5 per cent at Rs 340.

Tata Power Supply up 3 per cent at Rs 595 and Hero Honda up 2 per cent at Rs 699, were other major Nifty gainers.

Videsh Sanchar Nigam gained 2 per cent at Rs 465 on value buying after falling 6 per cent in the last two sessions.

Cement shares fell amid concern that demand would fall during the monsoon and as the government may ease import norms, dealers said. Grasim Industries fell 2 per cent to Rs 2,348 and ACC was down 0.5 per cent at Rs 763.

Reliance Communications fell 2 per cent to Rs 505 on profit sales after the run-up last week on reports the company had invited bids for its tower business.