Frontliners weigh on markets; Sensex, Nifty end in red

The Sensex today opened with a positive gap of 54 points at 15,429. However, weakness in banking stocks ahead of the RBI policy review saw the index drop into red to a low of 15,241.

The markets however were unaffected by the status stance taken by the RBI in its first review of the monetary policy. Fresh buying in realty following the fresh stimulus by the government, and auto stocks helped the index rebound into the positive zone and touch a high of 15,463 - up 222 points from the day's low.

Lower-than-expected earnings from Hindustan Unilever saw the stock take a sharp dip and with it the index. Weakness in Reliance and Infosys did not help either.

The Sensex finally ended with a loss of 43 points at 15,332, with Reliance, Hindustan Unilever and Infosys accounting for a loss of over 80 points on the index, and ITC contributing 10 points on the positive zone.

The market breadth was failry positive. Out of 2,745 stocks traded, 1,709 advanced while 945 declined. The rest were unchanged.

INDEX SHAKERS..

Hindustan Unilever plunged 7% to Rs 277 after announcement of Q1 results. ICICI Bank traded in red throughout the day and ended at Rs 740 - down 2.5%.

Grasim, SBI, Infosys and Reliance dropped 1.5% ach to Rs 2,837, Rs 1,681, Rs 1,995 and Rs 1,910, respectively.

...AND MOVERS

Tata Motors soared 10% to Rs 414 on a 57% jump in Q1 net profit.

Reliance Infrastructure gained 4% at Rs 1,210. DLF, Reliance Communications and Maruti Suzuki added 3% each to Rs 426, Rs 291 and Rs 1,409, respectively.

Tata Steel, Tata Power, ACC, NTPC, Bharti Airtel and Wipro moved up 1-2% each.

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty ended at 4,564 - down eight points.

Among the other Nifty stocks, ABB and Idea Cellular declined 3% each to Rs 721 and Rs 78, respectively.

Jindal Steel, Cairn India and Gail India also slipped over 1% each.

However, Ambuja Cements added 4.4% to Rs 99. HCL Technologies, BPCL and Power Grid Corporation also moved up.

MOST ACTIVE COUNTERS

Unitech topped the combined value chart with a turnover of Rs 1,648.65 crore, followed by Reliance (Rs 1,330.18 crore), DLF (Rs 1,095.32 crore), ICICI Bank (Rs 967.42 crore) and Tata Motors (Rs 802.59 crore).

The combined volume chart was also led by Unitech with trades of over 175 million shares. It was followed by Ispat Industries (63.89 million), Suzlon (56.17 million), Reliance Natural Resources (46.86 million) and IFCI (46.86 million).