Nifty ends tad below 5600; telecom, ADAG, power gain

Indian equity benchmarks continued their uptrend for second consecutive session on Wednesday. The 50-share NSE Nifty closed tad below the 5600 mark - it tried to cross that level during the day but could not make it.

The index settled at 5,592, up 31.85 points and the 30-share BSE Sensex gained 105.53 points, to end at 18,608.81. Indices were highly volatile in an intraday trade, with a positive bias. Market breadth too was in favour of advances - two shares gained as against every one share declined.

NTPC was the leading mover, with gaining 4%. Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group companies' shares were on buyers' radar today - Reliance Communications and Reliance Capital were top gainers, with rising nearly 5%. Reliance Power and Reliance Infrastructure went up more than 1.5%.

Among other largecaps - Bharti Airtel, L&T, SBI, HUL, TCS and Infosys gained 1-2.5%. BHEL, ONGC, Wipro and ITC were marginally in the green.

Cement stocks rallied for the second straight day today - monthly sales numbers could be the reason. Ambuja Cements rose 3% and ACC went up 1.5%. ACC sold 1.99 mt cement in May as against 1.75 mt in same month the previous year. Ambuja Cements's cement sales stood at 1.76 mt versus 1.89 mt during the same period.

Maruti Suzuki reacted quite positively to its sales numbers. India's largest car maker sold 1.04 lakh units in May as against 97,155 units in previous month. The stock jumped 1.6%. TVS Motor too gained 2.5% post better sales numbers.