Sensex down 10 points at close

The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 13 points at 10,748. Fresh buying in the opening deals saw the index spurt to a new all-time intra-day high of 10,753. However, profit-taking emerged soon, and the index slipped to a low of 10,662 - down 91 points from the high.

The index, thereafter, recovered smartly and bounced into positive zone. The Sensex finally ended with a marginal loss of 10 points at 10,726.

The BSE Capital Goods Index surged over 2% to 7942. The Bankex and Teck indices declined nearly 1% each to 5227 and 2513, respectively.

While the Midcap Index moved up 0.9% to 5030, the Smallcap Index added 0.6% to 6359.

The market breadth was marginally positive - out of 2,615 stocks traded, 1,321 moved up, 1,220 declined and 74 were unchanged today.

Late buying at the cement counters on hopes of a possible price hike saw ACC soar 6.6% to Rs 729. Gujarat Ambuja flared up 2.5% to Rs 93.25, and Grasim was up 1.6% at Rs 1,829.

HLL rallied 3.6% to Rs 252. Larsen & Toubro gained 3.3% at Rs 2,494.

Cipla and NTPC advanced over 1% each to Rs 571 and Rs 138, respectively.

Satyam and ICICI Bank slipped 2% each to Rs 786 and Rs 601, respectively. Tata Motors declined 1.9% to Rs 911.

Dr.Reddy's, TCS, Infosys, Ranbaxy, Tata Power, Tata Steel and Wipro dropped over 1% each today.

While 346 stocks hit their upper limits, 138

touched lower limits today.

Textile stocks were in demand following the Supreme Court's verdict allowing mill owners to sell/redevelop surplus land. Bombay Dyeing zoomed 20% to Rs 473. Ruby Mills, Ventura Textiles, Dawn Mills, Victoria Mills, Empire Industries, Swan Mills, Simplex and Shree Ram were also locked at their respective upper limits. Century Textiles surged 8% to Rs 422.

Nocil soared over 18% to Rs 25.80. Sathavahana, Godrej Industries, Hitachi Home, KRBL, Indiabulls, Escorts, Siemens, JSW Steel, CESC, Reliance Communication Ventures (RCoVL), Cummins and IDBI also ended with significant gains today.

VisualSoft slumped over 9% to Rs 188. Nagarjuna Constructions, Goodricke, Ind-Swift, Sunil Hi-Tech, Universal Cables, Paper Products, Color Chips, Indo Gulf, Indo Rama, UTI Bank, Abbott India, National Aluminium, Dabur, TVS Motors and Ramco System declined 2-5% each.

RCoVL topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 356.44 crore followed by Century Textiles (Rs 149.62 crore), SBI (Rs 124.56 crore), Reliance (Rs 117.94 crore) and Siemens (Rs 109.28 crore).

Reliance Natural Resources led the volume chart with trades of around 2.28 crore shares followed by RCoVL (1.15 crore), Hindustan Motors (80 lakh), Indiabulls (47 lakh) and Reliance Capital Ventures (45.36 lakh).