Sensex reclaims 18K but retraces to end flat
07 Apr 2010
The benchmark Nifty closed a volatile session on a flat note for the second consecutive day. It traded positive in the first half of trade while in the second half it hovered around its previous closing value. The Sensex hit the 18000 mark in the opening trade for the first time since February 27, 2008, but immediately retraced from that level.
Cement, telecom, select power and auto companies' shares witnessed buying interest. Reliance Industries, GAIL, ITC, BHEL, Cairn, Siemens, TCS and DLF were the other gainers.
However, banking & financial, pharma and metal companies' shares were on the sellers' radar. HUL, Infosys, L&T, M&M, ABB and BPCL were also the losers in trade.
The 30-share BSE Sensex closed at 17,970.02, up 28.65 points and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose just 8.65 points to settle at 5,374.65. The Nifty April futures closed at 6 points premium, as per provisional data.
The broader indices outperformed the benchmark indices; the BSE Midcap Index was up 0.5% and the Smallcap was up 0.7%.
Heavyweight Reliance Industries helped the indices to close positive, it gained 0.57%. Among the other oil & gas stocks, GAIL rose 3.57% and Cairn was up 0.5% while ONGC and BPCL were marginally in the red.
