Dull session for market, midcap index underperformed

It was a very quite session listless in most parts, but at least the morning slide got arrested. At one point, we went down very close to 5,480 levels, but managed to come back to around 5,530 levels.

The defensives like pharmaceuticals did very well. Across the board Cipla, Sun Pharma, Reddy and Ranbaxy were all up today. They were the biggest gainers in the Nifty. Financials had a late recovery. The names like HDFC, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and IDFC perked up.
On the losing side, a couple of infrastructure names like JP Associates did poorly. Oil and Gas was seen clearly weak today because of the disappointment of the EGoM deferral. ONGC, GAIL and BPCL were down in the red.
Some of the autos like M&M and Maruti did not look very good. Some of the ADAG Group names like Reliance Power, Reliance Communications and Reliance Infra gave back a little bit of ground.
Sun TV has been rebounding finally. It has consolidated for the last couple of days, but some short covering happened in futures and the stock was up 7%.
The market breadth was not very positive with 450 advances or 500 advances to 750 declines. The breadth was mixed. Even the midcap index underperformed the Nifty today.
A couple of sectors stood out like media. Names like NDTV, TV Today and UTV did very well. Textiles names like Arvind, Alok and Raymond did very well. Media and textile were the top two sectorial performances. There were individual names like HDIL, Cox and Kings, Uflex and Sujana Towers amongst the winners.
On the losing side, some of the infrastructure names like Punj Lloyd, GMR and Lanco were all down. Renuka from sugar, and United Phosphorus and Ashok Leyland in auto looked a bit sticky. Otherwise, it was an unremarkable session for the market.