The Sensex failed to hold on to early gains on Tuesday and ended with a moderate loss of over 16 points on emergence of profit selling in blue-chip stocks.
MUMBAI: In a mixed but volatile trade, the stock markets ended in negative terrain today on alternate bouts of buying and selling in line with Asian indices, despite the market breadth being positive.
Brokers said that operators and retailers were still hesitant to make any fresh purchases but preferred to book profits at current levels to play safe on global concerns, which led to heavy battering last week.
Sluggish opening of the European markets also dampened the sentiment in the later part of the day, they said.
Moving erratically in a narrow range of 15,069.64 and 14,964.66, the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) 30-share barometer Sensex concluded the day down by 16.30 points, or 0.11 per cent, at 15,000.91 from yesterday's close of 15,017.21.
The broader S&P CNX Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) moved between 4,394.30 and 4,354.35 before ending at 4,370.20, a mere fall of 3.45 points or 0.08 per cent from previous close of 4,373.65.
Consumer durable and realty shares attracted good buying support while selling in select heavyweights like Grasim, HDFC, L&T, ACC, BHEL, M&M, Maruti and HUL finished with marked losses, mainly weighing on the Sensex.
Meanwhile, the US markets ended fractionally down after showing signs of a recovery yesterday on reports that the world's top investment bank Goldman Sachs injected USD 3 billion in one of its troubled hedge funds.
Asian indices witnessed mixed trend at close. The Hang Seng, Shanghai Composite, Nikkei and Singapore ST closed in the green while Kospi and Taiwan's weighted ended in the red.
Omnitech InfoSolutions was listed today at 183.75 at a premium over the issue price of 105. It moved in a range of 183.75 and 155.00 before ending the day 164.55.
The market breadth remained strong with 1,573 gainers against 1,104 losers on the BSE.
The trading volume was low but relative up at Rs 4,232.40 crore from Rs 4157.97 crore on Monday. Everonn Sys remained the top traded share with the highest turnover of Rs 380.80 crore followed by Omnitech (the day's debutante) Infosol by 150.42 crore Orbit Co (Rs 138.79 crore), IDBI (Rs 97.88 crore) and SBI (Rs 96.92 crore).
The broad-based BSE-100 index declined by 8.77 points to 7,726.77 from previous close of 7,735.54.
The BSE-200 index and the Dollex-200 were quoted lower at 1,829.76 and 749.78 at close compared to last weekend's close of 1831.78 and 750.61 respectively. The BSE-500 Index also eased by 5.70 points to 5,867.47 from 5,873.17 and the Dollex-30 ended down at 3,031.19 from 3,034.48.
Grasim dropped by 57.85 to 2878.70, ACC by 22.00 to 990.30, HDFC by 42.30 to 1941.30, BHEL by 23.40 to 1687.00, L&T by 14.60 to 2420.75, M&M by 10.95 to 678.90, Maruti by 8.05 to 822.20, HUL by 3.50 to 200.05, Reliance Com by 3.80 to 524.50, TCS by 5.45 to 1129.60 and Tata Steel by 2.40 to 641.70.
However, RIL rose by 2.90 to 1831.80, ONGC by 10.75 to 853.95, NTPC by 5.00 to 172.75, HDFC Bank by 11.35 to 1146.95, Bajaj Auto by 5.85 to 2385.85, Bharti Airtel by 5.55 to 857.75, Hindalco by 1.45 to 153.95, Infosys Tech by 2.30 to 1954.25, ICICI Bank by 2.50 to 877.65, SBI by 1.60 to 1614.90 and Dr Reddy's Lab by 1.30 to 637.10.
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