Nifty closes flat; ITC, Tata Motors, HDFC up, TCS, SBI dip

The 50-share NSE Nifty closed flat on Friday as well, after witnessing rangebound trade for the entire session. Overall equity benchmarks maintained rangebound trade for the fourth consecutive week except some 100 points rally for couple of days. In the meantime, the Nifty extended range further to 5400-5500 from earlier 5350-5450 due to small rallies.

Vibhav Kapoor of IL&FS says that the market may remain range-bound. "The range is expanding anywhere between 5,400 to 5,550 levels. As time goes by, time is catching up with the fundamental bit so range is expanding on the upside very gradually maybe at the rate of about 10-12% a year," he said.

Capital goods, metal, financial, select technology and power companies shares witnessed selling pressure, which kept the markets in negative terrain in last one hour of tarde. However, the markets were positive since the beginning of trade; ITC, Tata Motors, HDFC, JSPL, Wipro, ACC, Sun Pharma, M&M, Idea, Cipla and Ranbaxy were on the buyers' radar.

The 30-share BSE Sensex closed at 18,143.99, down 28.84 points and the 50-share NSE Nifty slipped just 7.85 points to settle at 5,439.25. However, the Nifty August futures ended at premium. Equity benchmarks rallied 1.5% in a week.

Tata Motors was the top gainer as well as top traded counter of the day; gained 3.8%. Among other auto stocks, M&M gained 0.5% while Hero Honda declined 1.5% and Maruti lost 0.35%. ITC was the leader on Nifty; went up 1.9% while HUL was flat.

Heavyweights Reliance Industries and ONGC, from oil & gas space, went down 0.7-0.9%. Cairn India fell 1% while GAIL rose 1.7%. Selling was also seen in metal segment; Tata Steel, SAIL, Hindalco and Sterlite were down 0.4-1.25% while Jindal Steel moved up 1.5%.