Markets end with marginal gains

The markets put behind the worries of the previous day to end marginally in the green. A day after tanking 164 points on Eurozone worries, the Sensex ended higher by 40 points at 16657 and the Nifty ended exactly at the 5000 mark, up 13 points. The midcap index ended at 6790, higher by 32 points and the smallcap index ended at 8492, up 24 points.

It was not a smooth day though. The quiet opening, a steady morning sesson and the firmness in early noon would have flummoxed many a market player as it gave no indication of the volatility that was in store. But as the European markets slipped into the negative from a position of strength (upto a percent higher at opening bell), edginess came back to haunt our markets and infact dragged the indices below the dotted point at one point. The Sensex gyrated in a range of more than 200 points during the day before closing at mid point.  

Bharti Airtel soared by 5.5% at Rs 272 to top the gainers list on the BSE. The country's largest mobile telecom service provider had announced the completion of its deal on Wednesday to acquire the African assets of Kuwait's biggest phone company, Mobile Telecommunications Company, also known as Zain. Sterlite gained 3.3% at Rs 629 and ONGC added another 2.2% at Rs 1191. And index heavyweight RIL added 1% at Rs 1006.

In the midcap space, Marico soared by 6% at Rs 112, Bajaj Holdings gained 5.4% at Rs 730 and  and Bombay Rayon gained 5.4% at Rs 218. Kwality Dairy, Bajaj Finserv and Geekay Finance were the other notable gainers.

In the smallcap space, KPIT Cummins touched the upper circuit of 20% at Rs 129, Ashapura Minechem soared by 8% at Rs 54 and Titagarh Wagons added 6% at Rs 344.

On the losers side, ITC weakened by 4.1% at Rs 277 after turning ex-dividend. Tata Power lost 2.3% at Rs 1213 and Wipro shed 2.1% at Rs 630.

The market breadth was positive. Out of 2897 stocks traded on the BSE, there were 1480 advancing stocks as against 1283 declines.

Tata Steel topped the value charts on the BSE with a total turnover of Rs 163.05 crore. This was followed by SBI (Rs 147.01 crore), Tata Motors (Rs 129.99 crore), Hindalco (Rs 116.31 crore) and RCom (Rs 94.13 crore).

RCom led the volume charts with trades of 7.01 million. It was followed by Hindalco (4.95 million), Tata Steel (2.93 million), DLF (2.03 million) and Jaiprakash Associates (1.18 million).