Public CompanyA flat end to a choppy day
It was another lacklustre day of trade. The markets oscillated between either side of the dotted line before ending virtually unchanged. The Sensex closed at 16,894,lower by 18 points and the Nifty ended flat at 5041. Realty and energy stocks were in the doldrums, while consumer durables and pharma stocks looked up.
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The broader markets, however, saw a lot of action; the Mid-cap index closed up more than 1% at 6513 and the Small-cap index ended higher by nearly 1% at 7915. Stocks such as Asian Paints, Asian Hotels and Havells India touched 52-week highs.
Global cues were not very encouraging though. The US markets pared their gains as the Fed left the interest rates unchanged while hinting at an early end to the easy monetary policy regime. The Dow Jones closed down 10 points at 10,441 and the Nasdaq edged up 5 points to 2206 at closing bell. The Asian markets ended marginally lower.
Meanwhile, food inflation rose to 19.95 per cent in the first week of December against 19.05 per cent in the previous week due to the galloping prices of potatoes and pulses.
The potato prices more than doubled at 136 per cent and pulses became costly by over 40 per cent on an annual basis. The spike in prices was also significant on a weekly basis, with urad and spices rising by 3 per cent and milk becoming dearer by 2 per cent. Among the non-food articles, raw jute turned expensive by 11 per cent and mustard seed by 4 per cent.
Jaiprakash Associates closed at the ex-bonus price of Rs 149 as against the previous day"s close of Rs 217. On December 9, the company had announced a bonus issue in the ratio of one equity share for every two equity shares held in the company and fixed December 10 as the record date for the bonus issue.
DLF slipped by 3% at Rs 365 to emerge as the top Sensex loser despite the merger of DLF Assets and DLF Cyber City Developers in a move that would enhance the cash flow through rental income.
L&T lost Rs 22 or 1% at Rs 1656 and Reliance shed Rs 12 or 1% at Rs 1034. HDFC Bank and Maruti were the other significant losers.
The leading gainers on the Sensex were Hindustan Unilever (stronger by Rs 4 or 1.6% at Rs 268), Hindalco (higher by Rs 2 or 1.4% at Rs 145) and TCS (up Rs 9 or 1.2% at Rs 722).
The market breadth was strong. Out of 2884 stocks traded on the BSE, there were 1631 advancing stocks as against 1166 declines.
SBI topped the value charts on the BSE with a turnover of Rs 197.83 crore, followed by DLF (Rs 182.42 crore), HDIL (Rs 167.46 crore), Tata Steel (Rs 131.76 crore) and Unitech (Rs 119.47 crore).
Unitech led the volume list on the BSE with trades of 14.43 million shares. This was followed by Suzlon at 12.15 million, IFCI at 11.57 million shares, DLF at 4.98 million shares and HDIL at 4.89 million shares.