Markets ended today's volatile session on a flat note. The Sensex provisionally ended at 18,360 up 50 points and the Nifty gained 2 points to end at 5,576.
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(Updated at 1439 hours)
Markets continue to trade in a tight range in the late noon deals and are currently trading on a listless note. The Sensex is down by a point at 18,303 and the 50-share Nifty has slipped 8 points at 5,565.
Meanwhile, the Asian markets ended on a positive note in trades today as investors were encouraged by an improving outlook for talks to resolve an imminent fiscal crunch in the United States.
US lawmakers expressed confidence on Sunday that they could reach a deal to avert the $600 billion "fiscal cliff", which threatened to send the giant economy back into recession.
Hang Seng advanced 103 points to 21,262, Nikkei advanced 129 points to close at 9,153, Straits Times advanced 11 points to 2,956, Seoul Composite jumped 17 points to 1,878 and the Snaghai Composite closed higher by 2 points at 2,016.
The European markets opened on a weak note the CAC, DAX and FTSE were marginally down.
Back home, most of the Sensex stocks are facing the heat of a mild selling pressure. Tata Power is the top Sensex loser, down 2.6% at Rs 97. Tata Steel, TCS, HDFC, Reliance Industries, GAIL India, Sterlite Industries, Hindalco, HUL, Wipro, Larsen & Toubro, Dr Reddy's Labs, State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, BHEL and Tata Motors are also trading on weak note.
Auto shares were among the top gainers on hopes that the demand pick up during the festival sales would boost sales growth during the current month. According to brokerage reports, Maruti has large pending orders for Maruti Dzire while Mahindra & Mahindra has huge pending orders for its sports utility vehicle XUV 500. Maruti Suzuki, Mahindra & Mahindra, Bajaj Auto and Hero MotoCorp were up 1.2-3.7% each.
Telecom major Bharti Airtel extended gains was up over 2% after the government failed to attract bidders during the 2G spectrum auction. ITC also extended gains and was up over 2.2%.
NTPC was up over 1% after the company said that the Unit No. 5 of 500 MW of Rihand Super Thermal Power Station has been commissioned for commercial operations.
On the sectoral front, the BSE consumer durables index is the top loser, down 1.2% at 7,377 levels. Metal, healthcare, oil & gas, capital goods, bnakex, IT, PSU and power indices are also trading weak down 0.2-15 each. While, auto, FMCG and realty indices are among the gainers.
Among the individual stocks, L&T Finance Holdings (LTFH) has dipped 10% to Rs 75.50, extending its Friday’s 3% fall after rising over 50% in past two weeks on the Bombay Stock Exchange. The stock opened at Rs 83.75 and has seen a combined 18.38 million shares have changing hands on the counter till early noon deals on both the exchanges.
Panacea Biotec has rallied 8% to Rs 114 after the company announces that it has entered into a strategic alliance with Kremers Urban, a subsidiary of Belgium-based UCB, for 11 high barrier to entry generics, whose market size in US at the innovator level is around $4 billion.
Mahindra Lifespace Developers has surged 8% to Rs 440 on back of heavy volumes after foreign institutional investors (FIIs) increased their holdings in the company by around one percentage points in past one-and-half month.
The broader markets are under performing the benchmark indices. The BSE mid-cap and small-cap indices are down 0.7% each.
The overall breadth is negative as 1,743 stocks are declining while 970 are advancing.
