Nifty ends with modest gains; IT, metals, auto up

The benchmark Nifty erased 55.65 points from its intraday high of 4,912.05 in the second half of the session and closed with marginal gains. The Sensex wiped out 186.18 points from its day's high of 16,423.23. The markets had recovered today after two-days of fall and the recovery was led by strong Asian cues while European markets were quiet in trade.

Profit booking was seen in realty, telecom, oil & gas exploration, pharma, select power and cement stocks along with ITC, Grasim, M&M and ICICI Bank.

However, metal, technology, auto and select banking stocks along with HUL, L&T, Jaiprakash Associates and ACC witnessed buying interest throughout the session and capped the losses to some extent.

Asian markets closed higher; Nikkei rose 2.74% and Hang Seng gained 2.43%. Kospi was up 2% and Taiwan Weighted was up 1.6%. Jakarta went up 0.4%. Straits Times also erased its early gains and closed flat. However, Shanghai, which reopened after a week holiday, was down 0.5%. European markets were flat while the US index futures were marginally in the green, at the time of closing of Indian equities.

The 30-share BSE Sensex closed at 16,237.05, up 45.42 points or 0.28% and the Nifty rose 0.24% or 11.50 points to settle at 4,856.40. However, the broader indices underperformed the benchmark indices; the BSE Midcap Index was down 0.6% and the Smallcap was down 1%.

Technology and metal stocks remained on the buyers' radar; TCS and Infosys gained 0.9% and 1.4%, respectively. Wipro and HCL Tech went up 0.35% each.