The market opens on a sluggish note with Reliance opening just 2 per cent up, unlike a bigger move expected. Thirty-share BSE Sensex started the day at 8853, up 38 points from its previous close. Fifty-share NSE Nifty earned 6 points to start today at 2719.
On Thursday, positive global cues failed to support the Indian market. Markets saw a flat close as frontline stocks got hammered on account of poor quarterly results. While Sensex shut shop at 8813, up 34 points, Nifty ended the day at 2713, up 7 points from the previous close. Realty stocks were hammered badly followed by consumer durables and metal stocks, while technology and banking managed to trade marginally higher.
Indian stock market opened Thursday on a positive note. Sensex opened with a gain of 126.80 points, at 8,905.97 to touch a high of 8,927.69 in the morning trades. Later the index traded in a sluggish manner due to lack of cues and due to rising inflation in the noon trades. However, the Sensex shed all its gains and fell into the negative terrain on profit booking. It bounced back into the positive on account of select buying seen in frontliners to close on a flat note. India`s benchmark wholesale price index (WPI), inflation rose marginally to stand at 5.60 per cent for the week ended Januay 10, 2009 as against 5.24 per cent a week ago after declining for ten consecutive weeks.
Further, BSE Midcap and Smallcap index dropped 2.07 per cent and 2.01 per cent respectively. Among the sectoral indices, BSE Realty tumbled 5.47 per cent, consumer durables shed 2.77 per cent and metal down by over 2.50 per cent, while technology up 1.27 per cent.
Major gainers in the 30-share index were Bharti Airtel (6.19 per cent), Grasim Industries (3.05 per cent), Sun Pharmaceutical Industries (2.78 per cent), Sterlite Industries (India) (2.66 per cent), ICICI Bank (2.53 per cent), and ACC (2.45 per cent). On the other hand, DLF (9.36 per cent), Ranbaxy Laboratories (8.89 per cent), Hindalco Industries (7.49 per cent), Reliance Energy (6.15 per cent), Tata Motors (5.21 per cent), and Tata Steel (5.01 per cent) were the biggest losers in the Sensex.
— Shailesh Shah
