Mkt sees highest ever turnover but Sensex ends 94 points down

The market turned volatile in late trade after a relatively quiet session. It recorded highest turnover at 4.15 lakh crores. However, the Nifty lost 35 points to close at 5870 while the Sensex fell 94 points to end at 19,323.80.

The market were rangebound since early trade today but it got into bear grip in late trade, weighed down by Reliance Industries, Infosys, HDFC and ICICI Bank.

Despite today's of late sell-off, experts still feel the market would go higher in near term.

Hemant Thukral of Aditya Birla Money, says that one should maintain long positions , although 6,000-6,030 level will prove to be a slight resistance. "Until we cross that, I do not think the rally towards 6,150 will progress, but first target for the Nifty remains 6,030," he asserts.

Tirthankar Patnaik of Religare Capital Markets, is expecting the Sensex to touch 22200 based on valuation multiple of 14x.

Meanwhile, private oil & gas producer Reliance Industries and software services exporter Infosys fell 1 percent each. FMCG majors too saw selling pressure; ITC and Hindustan Unilever were down 0.5-1 percent.

Country's largest private sector lender ICICI Bank declined 0.9 percent whereas its rival State Bank of India rose 0.7 percent as cabinet cleared Rs 3,004 crore fund infusion in the bank.

Housing finance company HDFC and IT services exporter TCS went down over 0.7 percent.

Shares of Mahindra & Mahindra, BHEL, Jindal Steel, GAIL and Sterlite Industries dropped more than 1.5 percent.

However, commercial vehicle major Tata Motors bucked the trend, rising 1.34 percent. State-controlled oil & gas producer ONGC and top telecom operator Bharti Airtel were up 0.9 percent and 0.4 percent, respectively.

Declining share outnumbered advancing by 940 to 498 on the National Stock Exchange.

It's a quiet expiry session with the Nifty hovering around 5900. Autos and banks have seen some gains while commodities have dragged. Broader markets are performing marginally better.

The Sensex is down 9.37 points or 0.05% at 19408.09, and the Nifty down 6.95 points or 0.12% at 5898.65.

Hotel Leela is up 5% on reports that Reliance is buying its business park in Chennai to house its headquarters for its 4G operations. It is likely to ink the deal soon for Rs 172 crore.

Top gainers on the Sensex are Tata Motors (down 2.5%), Dr Reddy Labs, Maruti Suzuki and Tata Steel. On the losing side are Bhel, Coal India and ICICI Bank.

From the Jewellery space, PC Jeweller listed today on the exchanges. The stock is trading at around 12% premium to its issue price.

The rupee is mildly stronger today on continued strength in the euro and in most Asian currencies, though month-end dollar buying by companies is capping gains for the rupee.

Meanwhile, announcing the overall growth target for the 12th plan at 8% , Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called the figure an 'ambitious' one. Addressing the national development council meeting, he said that a combination of global slowdown and domestic constraints have hit the Indian economy. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, also said, India's economic growth could get stuck at 5-5.5% if policy logjam continues.

Globally, it's a positive session across most of Asia. Japanese markets are trading at a 21-month high, with the yen close to a 2-year low. Meanwhile in other asset classes, the euro is firm above 1.32, brent crude has slipped marginally below 111 dollars.

Key equity benchmarks were trading slightly higher early Thursday as markets across the world continued to be gripped by a holiday mood.

The BSE Sensex was up 5 points at 5911, and the Sensex was up 23 points at 19441.

Dealers expect a volatile trend as the day progresses because of unwinding of derivatives positions for expiry.

M&M Finance shares were up around 3 percent to Rs 1147. According to a report in The Economic Times, more than two-thirds of non-banking finance companies will be out of business if the Usha Thorat panel recommendation on minimum asset size of Rs 25 crore is implemented. Such a development could benefit the larger and more established NBFC players by way of reduced competition. Bajaj Finserv was the other notable gainer in the NBFC space, up around 2 percent to Rs 920.

Tata Motors shares were up 2 percent to Rs 312 on a report in the Mint that Tata Nano was among the top 10 best selling cars of 2012.