Sensex closes flat; SBI gains 1.7% ahead of Q2 nos

The BSE benchmark witnessed a consolidation pattern throughout the session on Tuesday, ahead of events in the eurozone. Nervousness in Asian markets spilled over to Indian equities and a bounce-back in European markets led to a recovery in the last hours of trade. The 30-share BSE Sensex has seen a swing of 177 points, before closing up 6.92 points at 17,569.53. The 50-share NSE Nifty rose just 5.15 points, to end at 5,289.35.

European markets were strong ahead of events like cabinet's emergency session in Greece, Italy PM's confidence vote and the meeting of European Union finance ministers. France's CAC, Germany's DAX and Britain's FTSE were up 1.2-1.6%.

Greece PM George Papandreou agreed to step down to create a new unity government yesterday. There were reports that Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi may be forced to resign if he fails to win majority support in Tuesday's vote on the 2010 budget report. France announced further budget savings of  7 billion euros in 2012 and 11.6 billion euros in 2013 to protect its AAA credit rating. 

Back home, SBI helped the market to recoup its losses. The stock gained 1.7% ahead of second quarter numbers tomorrow.

Even heavyweights Reliance Industries and Infosys also turned positive, rising 0.26% and 0.36%.

Tata Motors, TCS, HUL, HDFC Bank, BHEL, Sterlite Industries, Hindalco and Coal India gained 0.3-0.8%. ONGC, which rallied 3.5% in early trade post stellar performance in Q2, closed flat.