Sensex ends higher; broader indices outperform

The Nifty ended higher for the third consecutive day on the back of buying in banking & financial, metal, realty and oil & gas stocks along with L&T. It remained above the 4,800 mark in the first half of trade but could not hold that level in the second half of trade due to volatility.

The equity benchmarks started the day on a strong note following positive US and Asian cues led by encouraging US economic data. But the indices turned extremely volatile with a positive bias in the second half of trade, as FMCG, auto and cement stocks were under pressure. European markets and the US index futures were flat in trade, at the time of writing this report. Among the asian markets, Shanghai was up just 0.3% and other markets ended 0.6-1.6% higher. The US markets ended 2-2.4% higher on Thursday.

The 30-share BSE Sensex closed at 16,158.28, up 94.38 points or 0.59%, after seeing a swing of 208 points between day's range of 16,075.19- 16,283.86. The 50-share NSE Nifty witnessed 71 points swing, before closing at 4796.15, up 0.64% or 30.60 points. Both indices gained around 1.7% each this week.

Dipan Mehta, Member at BSE & NSE said the market was gradually getting into a trading range between 4,600 at the bottom and perhaps 5,000 at the resistance levels. "The only reason why we feel that the bottom is at 4,600 is because the global cues are improving. The pullback which we saw yesterday and then followed up with gains today, not to do with global cues, locally I think there are still certain challenges and, by and large the earning season has not gone up as well as we expected. So, in a way upsides seem to be capped at this point of time and the downside is capped on account of better global cues. So, the market should trade in a range for the next atleast two-three weeks.''

The BSE PSU Index outperformed the other indices, went up 3.91% post yesterday's Home Minister, P Chidambaram's statement on the divestment process. He said all unlisted PSUs (public sector undertakings) with a positive networth would be listed and a minimum of 10% of equity of all PSUs' would be held by public. MMTC locked at 20% upper circuit. STC India, Dredging Corporation, Rashtriya Chemical, NMDC and Hindustan Copper gained 10-14.8%. Recently listed power company, NHPC shot up 6%, and Engineers India gained 8%.

Suzlon Energy was the star for the second day in a row on the back of debt restructuring plan. It surged another 6.6% on good volumes. Jaiprakash Associates was the second biggest gainer on the NSE, up 5.6%. However, Idea Cellular and Tata Power were the top losers, lost 5% and 4%, respectively.