Equities took a breather from their multi-day rally with investors turning a bit cautious though select buying in frontline shares helped the NSE benchmark CNX Nifty to move up by 16 points today.
The market had been on a roll with the benchmark surging by over 555 points during the last four trading days after the Reserve Bank stepped into the forex market to shore up the free-falling rupee through a series of measures.
After a sluggish start on the back of profit taking, the 50-share NSE gauge witnessed extreme volatility and traded weak. However, overcoming the choppiness, it staged a sharp recovery from intra-day lows and ended in the green, helped by buying in bluechip shares and strengthening rupee value.
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Continued buying support from foreign institutional investors also lifted the sentiment. They bought shares worth Rs 2,563.60 crore yesterday, as per provisional data from the stock exchanges.
Financial, healtcare, metal, infra and auto counters attracted good buying, while FMCG and technology saw selling.
Markets need some consolidation at this juncture to move further up. The current rally was partly due to hectic short-covering, traders said.
Elsewhere, barring Hong Kong, other Asian bourses gained marginally despite easing fears of US strike on Syria.
The Nifty hovered between a high of 5,924.35 and a low of 5,832.70 before settling at 5,913.15, posting a modest gain of 16.40 points, or 0.28 per, over its last close.
Bank of Baroda, PNB, DLF, JP Associates, Grasim, Tata Steel, BPCL, Tata Power, NMDC and ACC were among the prominent gainers from the index.
Top draggers included Power Grid, Cairn, Tata Motors, ITC, HUL, BHEL, Cipla, Bharti Airtel, Infosys and ONGC.
Turnover in the cash segment dropped to Rs 13,820.36 crore from 15,080.13 crore yesterday. A total of 8,484.22 lakh shares changed hands in 74,70,883 trades. The market capitalisation stood at Rs 62,99,469 crore.
