The Nifty almost reached yesterday's low, but managed a flat close with a positive bias. A lower low or close below any previous day low may reverse the current upmove. A strong upmove may be possible above 5,870
 

The market managed a flat close with a positive bias helped by a late recovery amid a high degree of volatility. The Nifty almost reached yesterday's low, but managed a flat close with a positive bias. A lower low or close below any previous day low may reverse the current upmove. A strong may be upmove possible above 5,870. The National Stock Exchange (NSE) registered a volume of 61.05 crore shares and advance-decline ratio of 648:675.

The domestic market opened flat tracking the Asian markets which were weak in morning trade after a preliminary reading showed China’s factory output declined in April, re-igniting fears of a slowdown in Asia’s largest economy. Wall Street closed higher on Monday on bargain hunting, after last week’s decline on falling commodity prices.

Back home, the Nifty opened nine points up at 5,843 and the Sensex resumed trade at 19,210, a rise of 40 points over its previous close. The opening figures on the key market indicators were their intraday highs. The benchmarks were weighed down by selling pressure from banking, capital goods and fast moving consumer goods counters.

The indices continued to trend lower as trade progressed in the absence of any fresh triggers. The market touched its lows at around 12.30pm as selling in capital goods, banking, realty, PSU and consumer durables intensified. The Nifty fell to 5,792 and the Sensex retracted to 19,042 at their respective lows.

The market made a feeble attempt to bounce back, however, strong selling pressure kept the indices in the red in the second half of the trading session. But the benchmarks managed to emerge into the green in the last half hour of trade.

The market witnessed a flat close on political and economic concerns. The Nifty added three points (0.04%) to 5,837 and the Sensex rose 10 points (0.05%) to settle at 19,179.

The broader indices ended mixed, as the BSE Mid-cap index declined 0.38% and the BSE Small-cap index rose 0.36%.

The top gainers in the sectoral space were BSE Healthcare (up 0.66%); BSE IT (up 0.64%); BSE Oil & Gas (up 0.51%); BSE TECk (up 0.36%) and BSE Auto (up 0.12%). The main losers were BSE Capital Goods (down 1.29%); BSE Consumer Durables (down 1.14%); BSE Realty (down 0.67%); BSE Bankex (down 0.33%) and BSE PSU (down 0.32%).

Fifteen of the 30 stocks on the Sensex closed in the positive. The chief gainers were Hero MotoCorp (up 2.87%); Sun Pharmaceutical Industries (up 2.51%); Bajaj Auto (up 2.40%); Reliance Industries (up 1.74%) and ICICI Bank (up 1.20%). The top losers were Jindal Steel & Power (down 3.76%); Larsen & Toubro (down 2.04%); State Bank of India (down 1.61%); HDFC Bank (down 1.41%) and Tata Motors (down 1.37%).

The top two A Group gainers on the BSE were—Indiabulls Real Estate (up 8.70%) and Amara Raja Batteries (up 4.75%).

The top two A Group losers on the BSE were—JSPL (down 3.76%) and Motherson Sumi Systems (down 72%).

The top two B Group gainers on the BSE were—Alka India (up 20%) and Kesoram Industries (up 19.96%).

The top two B Group losers on the BSE were—USG Tech Solutions (down 19.70%) and Taksheel Solutions (down 19.68%).

Of the 50 stocks on the Nifty, 22ended in the green. The key gainers were Bajaj Auto (up 2.93%); Hero MotoCorp (up 2.6%); Sun Pharma (up 2.58%); Kotak Mahindra Bank (up 2.14%) and Grasim Industries (up 1.76%). The main losers were JSPL (down 3.95%); DLF (down 1.91%); HDFC Bank (down 1.85%); SBI (down 1.72%) and L&T (down 1.69%).

Markets in Asia settled lower as HSBC's flash PMI data saw factory growth in China falling to 50.5 from March's reading of 51.6. Chinese financials fell over 6% on reports that non-performing loans rose 21% in the first quarter from a year earlier.

The Shanghai Composite tanked 2.57%; the Hang Seng dropped 1.08%; the Jakarta Composite declined 0.43%; the KLSE Composite fell 0.37%; the Nikkei 225 contracted 0.29%; the Straits Times dropped 0.74%; the Seoul Composite was down 0.40% and the Taiwan Weighted settled 0.35% lower.

At the time of writing, the CAC40 of France gained 1.84%; DAX of Germany was up 0.53% and UK’s FTSE 100 was 0.83% higher. At the same time, US stock futures were mixed with a negative bias.

Back home, foreign institutional investors were net buyers of shares totalling Rs915.82 crore on Monday whereas domestic institutional investors were net sellers of equities amounting to Rs442.53 crore.

IT software products manufacturer Rolta India today said its subsidiary, Rolta International, has won a contract to develop geospatial transportation solution for Nanging city in China. The solution will collect Nanjing’s transportation data from hundreds of sensors and provide dashboards to assist in traffic management and monitoring the environmental parameters in real-time to better handle the dramatic increase in demand on the city’s infrastructure. Rolta India fell 0.87% to Rs62.85 on the BSE.

Union Bank of India has raised $350 million from an overseas US-dollar denominated bond sale. The annual coupon has been fixed at 3.625% (US treasury plus 300 basis points). This is better than the initial guidance of US Treasury plus 315 basis points. The stock declined 1.62% to Rs237.30 on the NSE.

Pennar Industries has bagged orders worth Rs50 crore for cold formed profiles, tubes and engineered components.  The Hyderabad-based company bagged these orders from Integral Coach Factory, Texmaco, J Kumar Infra Projects, ALF Engineering, IVRCL, and IJM Infrastructure. The stock gained 0.59% to close at Rs5.60 on the NSE.