Markets end flat on Sep F&O expiry, BHEL zooms 7%

Benchmark indices ended marginally positive amid volatile trading session as investors adopted a wait-and-watch stance following the rollovers in the F&O segment to October series.

The Sensex ended higher by 38 points at 19,894 mark and the Nifty was up by 8 points at 5,882 levels.

According to Mudit Goyal, technical analyst, SMC Global, “Short term and medium term is still positive for near term till nifty manages to trade above 5700 mark. For coming days, range bound and volatile sessions can be witness.

"Near term resistance is seen around 6050-6100 and Support is seen around 5800-5780.” In Asia, markets were left in limbo on Thursday as investors sweated out the latest battle over the U.S. budget, though Tokyo rallied as talk of a corporate tax cut resurfaced.

After a weak start, Japan's Nikkei erased all its losses to be up 1 per cent after Kyodo News reported the government would consider cutting corporate taxes, a proposal that has swung in and out of favour for weeks now.

The bounce in shares in turn weighed on the yen, already pressured by Japanese selling for month and quarter-end. The dollar popped up to 98.92 yen, from an early 98.46, while the euro gained almost a full yen to 133.80.

Back home, India's benchmark bond yield dropped on Thursday after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) assured it would provide liquidity to the market and also undertake open market operations if necessary.

The partially convertible rupee was trading stronger after the RBI eased norms for providing swaps to banks that are borrowing funds overseas.

At 15:30 pm, rupee was trading at 62.15 versus its close of 62.44/45 on Wednesday and close to the day's high of 62.1225.

Traders say gains in the domestic share market also helping sentiment.

On the sectoral front, BSE Power, Healthcare, Capital Goods, FMCG and Metal indices gained between 0.6-1%.

However, BSE Consumer Durables, Oil & Gas and Realty indices declined by nearly 1% each.

BHEL was the top Sensex gainer, up over 7% on short covering.

Other notable gainers were Tata Steel, Coal India, Sun Pharma, Tata Power, HDFC, ICICI Bank and ITC.

On the losing side, JSPL, GAIL, Hero Moto, Sesa Goa and TCS fell between 1-3%.

Among broader markets, BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices surged between 0.2-1%.

The market breadth in BSE ended marginally positive with 1,180 shares advancing and 1,135 shares declining.

SMART MOVERS

Oberoi Realty moved higher by 4% at Rs 174, bouncing back 9% from intra-day low after the real estate firm’s share sale programme for diluting 3.49% of the promoter’s stake has received good response.

Shares of shipping companies rallied up to 16% on the bourses as the Baltic Dry Index jumped 5.2% on Wednesday to its highest since December 23, 2011.

Shipping Corporation of India (SCI), Mercator, ABG Shipyard, Bharati Shipyard and Varun Shipping Company were up 5-19% on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Gillette India (GIL) moved higher by 9% to Rs 2,227 on BSE after the market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) said that the shareholding of Poddar Heritage Group would be considered to be part of the public shareholding subject fulfillment of the additional conditions.