Post Market - Jan 6 2010

The Sensex for the fourth straight session settles on a positive note with marginal gains amid choppy session. Healthcare, realty and oil & gas stocks buck the trend, while IT, teck and metal traded lower. It opened with a gain of 33.23 points, at 17,719.47 on Wednesday on mixed global cues and later turned into red due to select buying and selling seen in frontliners. Further the index traded in a narrow range amid volatility on the back of directionless market. Finally, it closed on a flat note after touching a high of 17,790.33 and low of 17,636.71.
BSE Midcap and Smallcap index rose 0.68% at 6,945.94 and 0.44% at 8,601.91 respectively.
The Sensex ended the day with a gain of 14.89 points, or 0.08% at 17,701.13 after touching a high of 17,790.33 and a low of 17,636.71. The broad-based NSE Nifty climbed 3.90 points, or 0.07% at 5,281.80 after hitting a high of 5,310.85 and a low of 5,260.05.
Leaders in the 30-share index were Tata Power Company (4.61%), Grasim Industries (4.28%), Mahindra & Mahindra (2.39%), DLF (2.38%), Reliance Industries (1.80%), and Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (1.10%).
On the other hand, Maruti Suzuki India (3.50%), Hindalco Industries (2.45%), Reliance Infrastructure (2.30%), Tata Consultancy Services (2.28%), Wipro (1.65%), and Infosys Technologies (1.35%) were the major laggards in the Sensex pack.
Overall market breadth was mixed. Out of the total 2,970 stocks traded at BSE, 1,493 advanced, 1,402 declined while 75 remained unchanged.
Among the sectoral indices, BSE HC which went up 2.04%, Realty went up 1.43%, Oil & Gas went up 1.10%, Consumer Durables went up 0.68% and FMCG went up 0.53%, while BSE IT fell 1.41%, TECk fell 1.07%, Metal fell 0.98%, Auto lost 0.34% and Capital Goods lost 0.34%.
On global front, European stocks gained to a 15-month high as higher metals prices boosted the earnings outlook for basic-resource producers and automakers advanced. US index futures slipped.
Asian stocks rose, lifting the MSCI Asia Pacific Index for a fourth day, as higher US sales at Toyota Motor and Nintendo fueled optimism demand in the world`s biggest economy is recovering.
``The market is in uptrend and in the near term the market is expected to move in a range 5,150 to 5,350,`` said Avinash Gupta, assistant vice president Research Equity, Bonanza Portfolio.