Mumbai: After rising 127 points in early trade, the Sensex on Wednesday pared most of the gains to close the day marginally up by 33 points at 18,610.77 as investors booked profits at higher levels, amid positive global cues. Enthused by a higher closing in US markets on Tuesday, the BSE benchmark index rose to day's high of 18,705.19 in the morning. HCL Technologies' 78 per cent rise in profit for the second quarter also aided the market sentiment. Brokers said the initial rise was also on the back of Finance Minister P Chidambaram's comments on Tuesday that Parliament must pass laws necessary for promoting economic reforms and boosting growth.
The Sensex, however, failed to sustain the momentum as RIL and TCS came under selling pressure. Analysts said RIL closed 0.97 per cent down as weak earnings remained a worry, while TCS scrip lost 1.05 per cent ahead of its results on Friday. After falling to day's low of 18,535.37 on fresh selling by foreign investors, the 30-share Sensex managed to end with a slender gain of 33.07 points at 18,610.77.
"Markets opened with a gap on back of global cues. However, subdued domestic scenario resulted in some selling pressure from day's highs," said Milan Bavishi, Head Research, Inventure Growth & Securities. ITC, HDFC, L&T, ICICI Bank, Infosys and Tata Motors were among the gainers, while RIL, TCS, HDFC Bank, SBI and GAIL ended with losses. The broad-based NSE Nifty ended with a gain of 12.25 points, or 0.22 per cent, at 5,660.25. "Volatility index is low which indicates time correction can continue," said Shubham Agarwal, Associate Vice President & Senior Technical Equities Analyst, Motilal Oswal Securities.
Asian shares ended narrowly mixed with upward bias after US industrial production beat estimates and Spain retained its investment-grade credit rating from Moody's, traders said. Key Asian indices in China, Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea finished higher while from Singapore and Taiwan settled with minor losses. European markets, however, were trading higher in their afternoon deals after ratings agency Moody's decided to retain Spain's investment grade credit rating. The CAC was up by 0.29 per cent, the DAX by 0.17 per cent and the FTSE by 0.30 per cent.
From the 30-share Sensex, 18 scrips ended with losses while 12 counters finished with gains. Major gainers were Tata Power (2.12 pc), HDFC (1.22 pc), BHEL (1.02 pc), L&T (1.02 pc), Tata Motors (0.99 pc), Bharti Airtel (0.93 pc), ITC (0.81 pc) and ICICI Bank (0.72 pc). The losers in the benchmark index were led by Gail India that fell by 1.98 per cent, followed by TCS (1.05 pc), Reliance Industries (0.97 pc), Sun Pharma (0.86 pc), SBI (0.64 pc) and HDFC bank (0.51 pc). "The market has turned a tad volatile lately with the main indices witnessing zig-zag movements on a daily as well as intra-day basis. The churning is likely to continue for a while as market participants analyse corporate results," said Amar Ambani, Head of Research, IIFL.
Among the sectoral indices, the BSE-CD firmed up 0.63 per cent, followed by BSE-CG (0.60 pc), BSE-Auto (0.50 pc) and BSE-Power (0.43 pc), while BSE-Realty eased by 0.62 per cent, followed by BSE-Oil&Gas (0.53 pc). The market breadth continued to show a negative trend as 1,543 stocks finished with losses while 1,329 ended with gains. The total turnover at BSE declined to Rs 2,066.84 crore from Rs 2,936.31 crore on Tuesday.
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