The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 23 points at 10,902. Fresh buying in early deals saw the index zoom to a new all-time intra-day high of 10,951.
The index, thereafter, moved in a narrow range of 50-odd points (high of 10,951 and low of 10,901) for the major part of the day. Selling towards the close saw the index slip into negative zone to a low of 10,844 - down 107 points from the high. The Sensex finally settled with a marginal loss of 19 points at 10,860.
The NSE Nifty meanwhile closed 7 points up at 3234 points.
While the BSE Oil & Gas Index climbed 1% to 4695, the Capital Goods Index slipped 1% to 8027. The Smallcap Index tumbled over 1% to 6249, and the Midcap Index was down 0.6% at 5052.
Declines beat advances 2:1 - out of 2,609 stocks traded, 1,765 declined, 781 advanced and the rest were unchanged today.
ONGC surged 2.5% to Rs 1,221. Tata Motors rallied over 2% to Rs 938.
Hindalco, TCS and Grasim ended with gains of over 1.5% each at Rs 159, Rs 1,860 and Rs 1,924, respectively. Hero Honda and NTPC were up over 1% each at Rs 901 and Rs 137, respectively.
Bharti Tele slipped 2% to Rs 383. Tata Steel dropped 1.7% to Rs 462. Larsen & Toubro, Infosys, Reliance Energy and Satyam declined over 1.5% each to Rs 2,467, Rs 2,877, Rs 641 and Rs 812, respectively.
Gujarat Ambuja, Tata Power, HLL and Bajaj Auto dropped over 1% each today. While 274 stocks hit their lower limits, 156 touched upper limits today.
Debutant Mahindra & Mahindra Financial touched a high of Rs 250, and a low of Rs 205 before settling at Rs 233 - a premium of 16.5% to the issue price of Rs 200.
Another debutant Visa Steel plunged to a low of Rs 49.55 after touching a high of Rs 61.90 in opening deals. However, heavy buying in the latter half of the day saw the stock close at Rs 57.15 - a premium of 4% to the issue price of Rs 55.
JJ Exporter hit the 20% upper limit at Rs 94.35. Prathiba, Zenith Infotech, Kirloskar Oil, Shyam Telecom, TTK Prestige, Fag Bearings, Indiainfoline, Nocil, Hindustan Sanitary, Whirlpool, Dewan Housing, Zee, MphasiS BFL, Dena Bank and Aventis Pharma were the other major gainers today.
VisualSoft plunged over 14% to Rs 139. Indotech, Sree Sakthi, Nitin Spinners, Punjab Alkalies, Aftek, Wartsila, Sunil Hitech, Tips, Sakuma Exports, FACT, Ramco System, Balaji Tele, Alstom Projects, Asahi India and Micro Inks were down 3-10% each.
B L Kashyap topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 536.15 crore followed by Ranbaxy (Rs 351.08 crore), Mahindra & Mahindra Financial (226.09 crore), Reliance (Rs 207.20 crore) and Dabur (Rs 190.16 crore). Reliance Natural Resources led the volume chart with trades of around 2.66 crore shares followed by Visa Steel (1.94 crore), Dabur (1.55 crore), Mahindra & Mahindra Financial (95.67 lakh) and Ranbaxy (87.18 lakh).
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