Quiet day for markets

The Sensex opened at 17,719 and soon touched a high of 17,790 - the highest level in the last 22 months. Weakness in the IT shares however pulled the index into the negative terrain to touch a low of 17,636, down 153 points from the day's high.

The BSE benchmark index kept on swinging zones for the rest of the trading session and finally ended flat at 17,701, up 15 points. The NSE Nifty is at 5,282, up four points.

The market breadth ended marginally positive, out of 2,969 shares traded, 1,488 have advanced and 1,410 have declined so far on the BSE.

Among the sectoral indices, the healthcare index advanced 2% to 5,175. It was followed by realty and oil & gas indices, up 1% each.

The IT index was the major loser on the Sensex, down 1% at 5,173 on the back of rising rupee.

INDEX MOVERS...

Tata Power soared 4.5% to Rs 1,474 and Grasim Industries added 4% at Rs 2,743, respectively.

Mahindra & Mahindra, DLF and Reliance were up 2% each at Rs 1,178, Rs 378 and Rs 1,089, respectively.

The other major gainers were ONGC, Sun Pharma, ICICI Bank and ICICI Bank, up 1% each.

...AND THE SHAKERS

Maruti shed 3.5% at Rs 1,462. Hindalco, Reliance Infrastructure and TCS declined 2% each at Rs 171, Rs 1,163 and Rs 733, respectively.

IT stocks like Infosys and Wipro were down 1.5% each at Rs 2,585 and Rs 693, respectively.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Tata Steel topped the value chart on BSE with a turnover of Rs 136.56 crore, followed by Reliance (Rs 116.79 crore), DLF (Rs 111.77 crore) and SBI (Rs 100.22 crore).

Cals Refineries topped the volume chart on the BSE with trades of 30.98 million shares. It is followed by DB Corp (19.91 million), Kaashyap Technologies (16.34 million), Satyam Computers (12.90 million) and Ispat Industries (12.53 million).