Nifty ends flat amid volatility; Fed taper fears dominate

Stocks closed virtually flat, giving up its partial recovery in a highly volatile trade on Friday, a day after markets witnessed a brutal sell-off rattled by concerns over an imminent prospect of tapering in the US.
The 50-scrip Nifty swung widely between a high of 6,049.60 and low of 5,972.80 before ending at 5,995.45, showing a modest fall of 3.60 points, or 0.06 per cent, over the last close.
Sentiment remained highly cautious following Federal Reserve's October meeting minutes indicated that the US central bank is likely to begin scaling back its quantitative easing programme "in coming months" and even if the jobs market isn't clearly strong as expected, sending shockwaves and panic among investors across the world.

The NSE benchmark had lost a hefty 124 points yesterday, its highest fall in more than 2-1/2 month.
After a strong rebound led by low-level bargain hunting amid hectic short-cover, key indices suddenly turned choppy towards the final hour of trade give away entire gains.
However, some buying in select frontline heavyweights helped the market to cut its losses.

A similar choppy session was seen in other Asian and emerging market also on conflicting cues of upbeat economic data and concerns about tapering.
FMCG, auto, metal, financials and realty remained under intense selling, while energy, technology and pharma stocks attracted good buying support.

Cairn, Tata Steel, ONGC, GAIL, L&T, Ambuja Cement, ACC, HDFC, Jindal Steel and Ranbaxy were the top index stock losers.
Key gainer included Sesa Sterlite, Tata Motors, Bajaj Auto, IDFC, SBIN, Ultracemco, NMDC, Grasim, ITC and HCL-Tech.
The turnover in cash segment fell to Rs 9,035.63 crore from Rs 10,386.73 crore yesterday. A total of 4,943.91 lakh shares changed hands in 48,89,343 trades, while market capitalisation stood at Rs 64,74,691 crore.