By IANS,
Mumbai : Indian equities markets ended marginally higher Thursday after a session marked by wild fluctuations, which even took a key index to dip below the previous day’s close for well over two hours.
The sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), started on a positive note, opening at 9,023.04 points, against the previous day’s close at 8,976.68 points and soon moved up to the day’s high of 9,086.77 points.
In the volatile trading that followed an hour after the opening bell, the index fell to the day’s low of 8,900.39 points, but subsequently managed to shed the losses to end the day at 9,001.75 points, with a slight gain of 25.07 points, or 0.28 percent.
“Investors were clearly looking at booking profits at short intervals. Otherwise the market breadth was positive,” said an analyst with a leading brokerage here.
“The news that India’s inflation rate has dipped to an all-time low has given rise to hope that the central bank may take some steps soon to help lower the cost of credit for the corporate sector and push demand,” he said.
The broader 50-share S&P CNX Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) also saw a similar trend and closed at 2,804.10 points, with a gain of 0.34 percent, over the previous day’s close at 2,794.70 points.
Among the Sensex shares, Sterlite, Housing Development Finance Corp and Tata Consultancy led the gainers, while Larsen and Toubro, Bharat Heavy Electricals and Tata Motors were among the top losers.
Out of the 13 sector-specific indices of the BSE, five ended in the negative territory, led by that for capital goods, down 2.62 percent, while the remaining closed in the green led by realty index, up 2.19 percent.
Data with the exchange also showed that 1,358 scrips staged an advance, while 1,102 ended in the red, with prices of 98 others remaining unchanged.
Small-cap stocks performed particularly well, with its index closing with a gain of 1.08 percent, while mid-cap stocks index, too, managed to outperform the Sensex, to log a gain of 0.52 percent.