Investors continue to book profits, Sensex ends flat

The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex ended flat today, with cautious investors booking profits at every bout of rise.

After a promising nearly 90-point gain in early trade, the BSE's 30-share barometer ended at 18,048.85 points, lower by 1.93 points, or 0.01%, from its last close.

The National Stock Exchange's 50-share Nifty index ended at 5,414.15 points, down by 0.08 per cent.

Banking counters such as HDFC and ICICI Bank attracted good buying support on hopes of strong lending growth and ended with handsome gains. These gains were, however, offset by losses in RIL, L&T, ONGC, HUL, Infosys, Bharti Airtel, Tata Steel, Sterlite Ind and TCS.

Brokers said the markets could not hold on to the gains till the close of the session as heavy profit-booking emerged in the closing hour. 

"Market is locked in a range and is looking for a clear direction. The range-bound trading is likely to continue for coming period," Geojit BNP Paribas research head Alex Mathews said.

Analysts said healthy trade data for July also failed to enthuse the market. India's exports rose in July, for the ninth month in a row, by 13.2% to $16.24 billion.

Imports, too, rose by 34.3% to $29.17 billion, taking the trade gap for the month to $12.93 billion.     

A day after it announced a $9.6 billion deal to buy out Cairn India, NRI billionaire Anil Agarwal-controlled Vedanta Group's Sterlite Industries slid 1%.

"The key risk is Vedanta's lack of experience in managing the E&P asset portfolio, being a new player in the segment," brokerage firm Angel Broking said in a note.

Banking, auto, realty and PSU indices all rose, but less than 1%. IT, metal, power and consumer goods ended up losers in the region of less than 1%.

"Valuation-wise, banking stocks seem to be good and are attracting buying," Mathews said. HDFC rose by 1.86%, HDFC 1.26% and ICICI Bank 0.32%. SBI, however, ended in the red with a 0.07% loss. The banking sector index gained the most among the 13 sectoral indices of the BSE.

"These days, buying is seen more in individual stocks and index stocks are not getting enough attraction," CNI Research CMD Kishore P Ostwal said.

Even though the metal index was down, Hindalco climbed 2.34% to emerge the top gainer in the Sensex pack. "Post June quarter results, we observed Hindalco is the only firm to have witnessed upgrades for the current as well as next fiscal," an analyst said.

HUL, at 1.59%, was the worst-hit among Sensex stocks. R-Infra, at 1.12%, was the next biggest loser.

Reliance Industries, which holds the maximum weight in the Sensex, ended with a loss of 0.52% at Rs 971.10.

Among the frontline IT stocks, Wipro fell 0.46%, Infosys 0.26% and TCS 0.43%. Brokers said the rupee posting its biggest gain in two weeks against the US dollar triggered profit booking, as a stronger rupee could hit the bottom-lines of software exporters.

ONGC sank 0.87%, Tata Steel 0.74% and L&T 0.68%. Tata Power dropped 0.61% and DLF 0.52%.

Asian stocks ended mixed today. Key indices from China, Hong Kong and South Korea finished with small gains, while Japan, Singapore and Taiwan closed in the red.