Markets end on a soft note

Fresh selling at fag end of the day saw the markets end on a soft note. The Sensex and Nifty traded in the positive zone for better half of the trading day. However, weakness mainly in select banking stocks saw the markets slip into red.

Mirroring a recovery in global markets, the Sensex jumped to a high of 18,040 this morning. The index, thereafter, exihibited sideways movement before tumbled to a low of 17,848 at the fag end of the day.

The Sensex finally settled with a loss of 50 points at 17,878.

The NSE Nifty shed 62 points from a high of 5,416, before signing off with a loss of 18 points at 5,368.

The BSE Healthcare index slipped nearly 1% to 5,659. The Auto index declined 0.7% to 8,259, and the Bankex dropped 0.4% to 11,375. The BSE Realty index, however, gained 1.3% at 3,473.

The market breadth too turned negative at close. Out of 3,029 stocks traded, 1,631 declined and 1,280 advanced on the BSE.

INDEX MOVERS. . .

DLF gained 2% at Rs 322. Sterlite added 1.5% to Rs 166, and Wipro was up 1% at Rs 408.

Larsen & Toubro and TCS were the other notable gainers.

. . .AND THE SHAKERS

Jaiprakash Associates shed 1.7% at Rs 127. Tata Motors and Reliance Communications slipped 1.5% each to Rs 813 and Rs 188, respectively.

HDFC and ICICI Bank were down over 1% each at Rs 3,013 and Rs 889, respectively.

Mahindra & Mahindra, Cipla, Jindal Steel and Hindustan Unilever were the other notable losers.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

BF Utilities topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 130 crore on the BSE. It was followed by Tata Steel (Rs 77.44 cr), Everonn Education (Rs 76.30 cr), Sesa Goa (Rs 66.33 cr) and IFCI (Rs 59 cr).

IFCI led the volume chart with trades of around 9.77 million shares followed by DCB (8.11 mn), Unitech (5.31 mn), Karuturi Global (4.40 mn) and Sujana Metal (3.62 mn).