Market witnessed a range-bound trade today as bouts of buying as well as profit-booking in key counters amid investors' caution ahead of month-end expiry next week led the benchmark to close marginally higher by 10 points at the National Stock Exchange (NSE).
Key index heavy-weights in FMCG, Banking, IT, auto and metal counters lifted the market. It was also supported by buying in shares of mid-cap and small-cap companies, while profit-booking in energy and pharma restricted the rise.
Though a good FII buying maintained the market optimism, the profit-booking at higher levels ahead of March expiry contract on coming Thursday and next month general election pressured the sentiment.
Index heavyweight Tata Steel rallied by 3.69 per cent, Hindalco by 3.22 per cent and JP Associate by 3.18 per cent.
While the state-owned energy major ONGC fell by 2.98 per cent, Reliance dropped by 2.23 per cent.
Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 1,272.93 crore yesterday, as per the provisional data from the stock exchange.
The market opened higher on firm Asian cues and trimmed the gains before recovering during the morning trade. It moved in a narrow range during afternoon session before ending with small gains.
The 50-share Nifty traded between a high of 6,522.90 points and a low of 6,485.70 points before closing at 6,493.20 points, up 10.10 points or 0.16 per cent over the last close.
Other major gainers were Bank of Baroda, Wipro, Axis Bank, DLF, Tata Power, Tata Motors and Jindal Steel. While, NMDC, Heromotoco, IDFC, NTPC, Sunpharma, Asian Paint and BhartiAirtl witnessed profit-booking.
Turnover in the cash segment jumped to Rs 14,654.00 crore from Rs 11,415.84 crore yesterday. A total of 7,330.26 lakh shares changed hands in 60,63,162 trades, while market capitalisation stood at Rs 69,69,294 crore.
