Nifty ends flat amid low participation; capital goods gains

Indian equity benchmarks ended the session on a flat note amid low volume trade on Thursday. The market has completely been directionless as it seemed that it could be waiting for some trigger for getting direction on either side - i.e. 5400 on the downside while 5600 on the upside. Triggers could be IIP (tomorrow), RBI policy (on June 16) or any global event.

The 50-share NSE Nifty has been in a tight range of 5500-5550 for the fifth consecutive session. It fell just 6 points, to end at 5,521.

Deven Choksey of KR Choksey said the market would remain in a range of 5500-5650. "You would basically see the 5500 level at which most of the traders are meeting and writing calls and writing puts at this level and in this processing buy the time value of money. So this is where the market is stuck up. Unless we see some sort of formidable performance coming in from player into the market, I don't see we are going to change the range. Probably, we may go to 5450. We may touch back 5600-5650 and again stay in this particular range. But nothing beyond that and cash market is certainly a worrisome factor," Choksey said.

Raamdeo Agrawal, Director and Co Founder, Motilal Oswal Financial Services too said the current sluggish trend will continue.

"The earnings outlook is becoming slightly hazy post Q4 announcements. In any case there is interest rate rising scenario and foreigners are also not too excited about Indian markets. So, all in all it looks like the current trend is going to continue. The sluggish movements will continue for some more time," he said.

The 30-share BSE Sensex shed 9.39 points, to close at 18,384.9. Even the European markets namely CAC, DAX and FTSE were flat in trade.