Nifty rebounds in late trade to end flat; IT, metals lead

The Nifty staged a smart recovery in the last one hour of trade and managed to close the session on a flat note. It closed above the 5,050 level and the Sensex ended above the 17,000 mark for the second straight day led by buying in technology, metal, banking and select infrastructure stocks.

The benchmark indices started the day on a choppy note but sell-off in oil & gas, telecom and realty kept the markets lower for major part of the session. Reliance Industries was down 0.65%, as there was no surprise announcement at the 35th AGM of the company. ONGC also slipped over 2% on the back of profit booking.

Weak Asian and European markets also weighted on the Indian indices. European markets were marginally in the red, after showing recovery from day's low and the US index futures were flat in trade, at the time of writing this report. Asian markets ended lower; Nikkei, Straits Times, Kospi and Taiwan Weighted fell 0.4-0.8%. Hang Seng declined just 0.13% while Shanghai and Jakarta gained 0.2% each.

Overall, it was a consolidation day for the markets, after two positive days. The 30-share BSE Sensex closed at 17,050.65, up 18.14 points and the Nifty shut shop at 5062.25, up 4.2 points. Both the indices recovered 167 points and 52 points, respectively. The broader indices were also flat.

Amit Khurana, Institutional Equities Head at Mangal Keshav said 5,200 was still a very much possibility but a breakout above that would surprise. "So our sense is that the market would be in a range. We see the Nifty range between 4,600 and 5,200 over the next few weeks."

Airline stocks witnessed selling pressure as Committee of Secretaries' meeting on FDI in aviation got cancelled. Kingfisher Airlines lost 5%; Jet Airways was down 2.3% and SpiceJet fell 3.5%.