Mumbai: The broader market witnessed a range-bound trade amid choppiness ahead of monthly expiry of the May derivative contract tomorrow, as bouts of buying and selling led the benchmark to garner a modest gain of 11.65 points at the National Stock Exchange (NSE) today. Investors caution prevailed due to F&O expiry event tomorrow and resorted to value buying in key IT, Banking, Infra, Pharma and realty counters, firmly supported by shares of Mid-cap and Small-cap companies.
While heavyweights in Energy, Auto, Metals and private financials which was recently on bull-run encountered selling. Meanwhile, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold shares worth a net Rs 202.61 crore yesterday, as per provisional data from the stock exchanges. Most of the Asian stocks ended higher, while European stocks were trading flat.
The 50-share Nifty resumed slightly up at 7,324.95 and hovered between a high of 7,344.75 and a low of 7,302.60 before closing at 7,329.65, a modest gain of 11.65 points, or 0.16 per cent, over the previous close. Cement companies extended the limelight with leading Ambuja Cement rallying 5.35 per cent, ultracem co by 4.86 per cent, Acc by 3.81 per cent, HCL Tech gained 4.12 per cent and Tata Power by 3.60 percent.
While, key Energy and Auto segment ended in losses with Coal India dropping by 3.22 percent, M&M by 3.04 percent, ONGC by 2.73 percent, also Asian Paint fell by 2.59 percent. Other major gainers were Grasim, HDFC Bank, Bharti Airtl, Dr Reddy and TechM. While, losers include Jindal Stl, PNB, GAIL, BPCL, Hindalco and NTPC. Turnover in the cash segment rose to Rs 19,298.88 crore from Rs 18,829.36 crore yesterday. A total of 12,667.14 lakh shares changed hands in 89,09,229 trades, while market capitalisation stood at Rs 83,06,963 crore.
