Markets end flat: Metal, cement stks gain, auto down

10 July 2008

It was an extremely volatile session throughout the day. Markets ended flat after showing recovery from day's low. Selective buying and selling has seen across the board. It was witnessing some selling pressure in afternoon trade due to heavy sell off in European markets but again turned volatile as it looked like tussle between bulls and bears. Markets did not give major reaction to huge fall in US markets on Wednesday.

Nalco, SAIL, DLF, Power Grid, Tata Steel, Hindalco, HDFC, L&T and Reliance Infra were top contributors to both indices while
Reliance Ind, ITC, Infosys, Bharti Airtel, TCS and ICICI Bank draggers.

The Sensex has recovered 162.3 points and Nifty 51.8 points from day's low of 13,763.94 and 4110.40, respectively. Sensex finished the day with loss of 38.02 points or 0.27% at 13,926.24 while Nifty with a gain of 5.1 points or 0.12% at 4162.20.

Amongst frontliners, NALCO shot up 8.37%, Hindalco 5.49%, Power Grid Corp 5.03%,Zee Entertain 4.96%, ACC 3.12%, Tata Steel 2.70% and Ambuja Cements 2.46% while Hero Honda fell 3.67%, Maruti Suzuki -3.34%, ITC -2.18%, Reliance Ind -1.98%, Tata Motors -1.82% and ABB -2.64%. 

DLF was in positive terrain through the day, up 1.8% as the company has announced buyback of Rs 1,100 crore at maxium price of Rs 600 per share. It will buyback upto 2.2 crore shares, which is 1.1-1.29% of total equity. Promoters' stake will go up from 88.2% to 89.3% if buyback is completed.

Metal Index outperformed other indices, up 2.5% or 316.55 points at 12,959.17 due to buying in NALCO, Ispat Industries, Hind Zinc, Hindalco, Jai Corp, NMDC, SAIL, Tata Steel, Sterlite Ind, Guj NRE Coke, Sesa Goa and Jindal Steel.