Nifty in tight range; Infy, Bharti, Wipro, BHEL slip

The benchmark Nifty was trading in a tight range of 5662-5690 since early trade today at 12:06 hours, with a negative bias and was extremely volatile as well. Even the market breadth was mixed; about 600 shares advanced as against 650 shares declined on National Stock Exchange.

Derivative contracts expiry is due today, which was the reason behind today's choppy trade. The Nifty February futures were trading at 16 points premium. F&O turnover would be high because of F&O expiry. Total traded turnover was more than Rs 75,500 crore, including Rs 69,529 crore from F&O segment.

Bharti, Infosys, Sterlite, Wipro, BHEL, HDFC, JSPL, HUL, Maruti and ICICI Bank were putting pressure on markets. Healthcare and realty companies too were witnessing sell-off.

However, TCS, SBI, Tata Motors, ITC, NTPC, Reliance Industries, Bajaj Auto, L&T, ONGC, HDFC Bank, ACC, Hindalco and Reliance Infrastructure were consistently supporting the benchmarks.

The 30-share BSE Sensex fell 65 points to 18,904 and the 50-share NSE Nifty slipped just 19 points to 5,668. 

However, this downfall in the market, Deven Choksey of KR Choksey Securities says was overdone. "The markets have probably completed the kind of fall, which it wanted to. The rollover position today is probably on a lower side of the rollover