Sensex ends flat after smart recovery

The Sensex today opened on firm note, up 43 points at 17,274 tracking frim global cues. The index soared to a fresh 17-month high of 17,350. The index however pared its gains and slipped into the negative zone.The benchmark index continued to languish in the red terrain to touch a low of 17,093, down 257 points from the day's high.
 
The Sensex recovered smartly towards the end of the trading session and ended flat at 17,195, down 36 points. The NSE Nifty ended at 5,109, down nine points.

INDEX SHAKERS...

Bharti Airtel tumbled 4% to Rs 325. Sun Pharma and Reliance Infrastructure slipped 3.5% each to Rs 1,359 and Rs 1,277, respectively.

Infosys, TCS, Hindustan Unilever and Wipro were down over 1.5% each.

...AND THE MOVERS

Among the BSE 30-stocks, SBI advanced around 3% to Rs 2,330. Tata Power, Sterlite and ICICI Bank added 2% each to Rs 1,369, Rs 868 and Rs 936, respectively.

HDFC Bank and NTPC were up 1% each.

The BSE IT index was down 1% at 4,381. Healthcare and consumer durables indices also declined around 1% each.

The metal and the bankex were up around 2% each.

The market breadth is marginally positive, out of 2,836 shares traded, 1,401 advanced and 1,357 declined on the BSE.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

SBI topped the combined value chart with a total turnover of Rs 955 crore. It was followed by Bharti Airtel (Rs 919 crore), Reliance (Rs 893 crore), Unitech (647 crore) and Tata Steel (596 crore).

Unitech led the combined volume chart with trades of 62 million shares. It was followed by Suzlon (57 million), Ispat (48 million), IFCI (46 million) and Bharti Airtel (28 million).