Mkts end flat; realty, OMCs, RIL, Bharti up, banking dips

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It was a lacklustre session of trade for the benchmark indices. Some amount of short covering was seen, after two days of big fall. Indian equities, therefore, did not see any big fall like seen by global markets.

Realty, OMCs, select power, cement, auto stocks as well as Reliance Industries, Bharti, Infosys and SAIL supported the markets (Also See - Top Gainers ). However, banking stocks remained under pressure throughout the day, followed by ONGC, TCS, Reliance Infrastructure, L&T and M&M (Also see - Top Losers ).

The 30-share BSE Sensex closed at 9,015.18 points, down 19.82 points or 0.22%, after swinging 191.61 points between an intraday high of 9,113.92 and low of 8,922.31. However, the 50-share NSE Nifty swung nearly 70 points between a high of 2806.50 and low of 2736.65, before closing at 2776.15, up 0.20% or 5.65 points.

Volumes were higher than previous day; total turnover stood at Rs 51,710.74 crore. This includes Rs 7,738.26 crore from NSE cash segment, Rs 41,094.83 crore from NSE F&O and the balance Rs 2,877.65 crore from BSE cash segment.   

On the F&O side, F&O turnover was roughly 7% higher than previous day. Nifty February and March Futures have added about 48 lakh shares in open interest (OI), which includes 22 lakh shares in February and 26 lakh shares addition in March futures. March futures ended with 15 points discount while February futures with 9 points discount.

On the stocks specific action in F&O, Unitech has added about 57 lakh shares (32 lakh shares in February and 26 lakh shares addition in March Futures). NTPC has seen a build up of 16 lakh shares in OI.

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