It was a consolidation day for the markets. The benchmark indices snapped a two-day winning streak and ended the session marginally lower. The sell-off in oil & gas, technology, realty, cement, private power counters and in stocks like BHEL, SBI and HUL kept the Nifty below the 4650 level.

On the positive side, telecom (barring Reliance Communication) and metal stocks, NTPC and HDFC Bank helped the benchmark indices.

The 30-share BSE Sensex closed at 15,411.47, down 55.34 points or 0.36%, after seeing a swing of 328 points between an intraday high of 15,568.74 and low of 15,240.73. The 50-share NSE Nifty slipped below the 4600 mark during the day. It witnessed a swing of 93.4 points between day's high/low of 4679.55 and 4586.15, before closing at 4637.70, down 0.38% or 17.55 points.

Amitabh Chakraborty, President (equity) of Religare Capital Markets said the volume was considerably down today and advance/decline ratio was clearly indicating some kind of fatigue. He said, "Probably midcaps will start moving again from the next week onwards. The market will try to move towards 4,700 on the Nifty or 16,000 on the Sensex. Everyone is talking about some correction after the Budget but probably we may see a correction before the Budget itself. But that is quite healthy according to me."

Sectoral Indices
Cement stocks were under pressure in today's trade. ACC and Ambuja Cements slipped over 4%. Binani Cement, Heidelberg Cement, India Cements, JK Cement, JK Lakshmi Cement, Madras Cements, Mangalam Cement and Prism Cement were down 2-8%. Grasim Industries fell 1%.

UltraTech Cement lost 4.02% and its volumes increased 651.67% to 292,619 shares, as compared to its 5-day average of 38,929 shares. About 1.4 crore shares of the company changed hands on the NSE at Rs 725 per share, as L&T sold its entire 11.49% stake in UltraTech to clutch of investors. Larsen and Toubro was down just 0.5%.

Whole oil & gas space remained under pressure throughout the session; BPCL, HPCL and ONGC tumbled 4-5%. Reliance Petroleum, IOC, Cairn India and Reliance Industries fell 0.9-1.3%. The BSE Oil & Gas Index was down 1.65%.

Technology stocks like HCL Tech, Infosys, Wipro and Tech Mahindra declined 1.4-3.9%, and TCS lost 0.81%. The BSE IT Index slipped 2.6%. However, Satyam locked at 10% upper circuit for the third straight day and crossed the Rs 80 mark.

In the realty space, Orbit Corporation, Omaxe, Sobha Developers, Unitech, Puravankara Projects, Akruti City and DLF were down 1-4%.

Among the capital goods stocks, BHEL lost 3.5%. ABB and Punj Lloyd declined 1.2-1.9%. Siemens and L&T were down 0.6% each.

There was a mixed trend in the banking, auto and power stocks. In the banking pack, SBI, Axis Bank and PNB lost 3-3.4% while HDFC Bank gained 3.85% and ICICI Bank was up just 0.33%.

In the power space, GMR Infra, CESC, Suzlon Energy, Reliance Infrastructure, Tata Power and GVK Power tumbled 1.4-3% while Reliance Power, NTPC and Torrent Power went up 1.6-3.4%.

In the auto pack, Bharat Forge, Maruti Suzuki and Hero Honda fell 1-2.8% while Apollo Tyres surged 8.19% and M&M gained 6.18%. Tata Motors was up 2.49%.

However, metals stocks remained on the buyer's radar for the whole day, as copper, nickel, lead, aluminium and zinc gained 2-4.5%. JSW Steel, Hindalco, Sesa Goa and Sterlite were up 6-9%. JSL, NALCO, Tata Steel and SAIL went up 2-4%.

Another buzzing sector was telecom; wherein Idea gained 5.26%. The company added 1.30 million mobile users in May, 2009 as against 1.11 million users in April, 2009. Among the others, Tata Communication, Tata Teleservices, MTNL and Bharti Airtel were up 2.3-9.7%. Tulip Telecom surged 12.35% and Spice Communication gained 8.7%. However, Reliance Communication fell 0.9%.

Sugar stocks also witnessed huge buying interest; Bajaj Hindusthan was up 8%. Balrampur Chini, Dhampur Sugar, Dwarikesh Sugar, KCP Sugar, Ponni Sugars (E), Rajshree Sugars, Sakthi Sugars, Shree Renuka, Simbhaoli Sugar, Triveni Engg, Upper Ganges Sugar and Uttam Sugar were up 3-6%.

Inflation

Inflation for the week-ended May 30 came in at 0.13% as against 0.48% on week-on-week basis (WoW). Inflation for the week-ended April 4 revised to 0.83% versus 0.18% (Provisional data).

WPI (Wholesale Price Index) for all commodities was up 0.1% at 232.6 (WoW) and fuel group remained unchanged at 324.

Volumes slipped below the Rs 1 lakh crore mark; total traded turnover stood at Rs 94,928.21 crore as against Rs 1,07,313.51 crore on Wednesday. This included Rs 23,868.34 crore from the NSE cash segment, Rs 63,464.28 crore from the NSE F&O and the balance Rs 7,595.59 crore from the BSE cash segment.

Among the broader indices, the BSE Midcap Index closed 11.92 points or 0.22% lower at 5,347.58 and the Smallcap Index fell 0.9% or 55.98 points, to settle at 6,150.44.

The market breadth was weak due to negative broader indices; about 1019 shares advanced while 1842 shares declined on the BSE. Nearly 284 shares remained unchanged.

Global cues:

Crude July contract touched a USD 72 a barrel during the day on the NYMEX.

At the time of closing of Indian equities, European markets like the FTSE was up 23 points, to 4,459. The CAC rose 7 points, to 3,322 and the DAX gained 26 points at 5,077.

Among the US futures, the Dow Jones futures went up 26 points, to 8,780 while the Nasdaq futures fell just 5 points, to 1,497.

Asian markets ended mixed. Taiwan Weighted gained 1.6% and Seoul Composite rose 0.32%. However, Straits Times, Shanghai Composite and Jakarta declined 0.4-0.9%. Nikkei and Hang Seng were flat.