Nifty ends flat; TCS, Bharti, HUL, Ranbaxy top losers

It was completely a lacklustre session for the Indian equity benchmarks. The Nifty remained in a tight range of 5270-5295 since the opening trade on Wednesday. Overall indices have been in a consolidation phase from yesterday - especially after sell-off seen in previous four sessions.

It seemed that investors as well as traders were cautious ahead of expiry next week. Even they could be waiting for some trigger - in the form of global event or government policies - to get some direction on either side.

The 30-share BSE Sensex fell just 10 points, to close at 17,550 while the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 2.5 points to end at 5,275.

Devangshu Datta, Consulting Editor of Outlook said he was not very optimistic about the 5200 support holding on the Nifty.

"A lot of major stocks, a high weighted stocks have hit 52-week lows in the last 3-4 sessions. The key level is 5177 and I had expect that to be broken. I have been consistently bearish for the last 3 months. Levels of 5000-5100 is really where I would look for support rather than 5200. It might hold for the settlement, it might hold till the 30th."

Vikas Khemani, executive vice president and co-head institutional equities at Edelweiss Capital too said there was extreme pessimism in the market right now. "Volumes are low, so there is lot of volatility. My guess is that market is close to bottoming out. Whether it will bottom out next week or in a couple of months is hard to say. I don't expect the Nifty to go below 4850," he said.