Sensex ends down 35 points; Hindalco surges 6%

The Sensex opened 51 points lower at 8,951 this morning. Weakness in banking, capital goods and realty stocks dragged the index to a low of 8,867.

However, steady buying at the metal stocks helped the index recover most of its losses. The Sensex finally ended with a marginal loss of 35 points at 8,967.

The NSE Nifty ended flat at 2807.

The BSE Realty index slumped over 4% to 1,566, mainly on account of a 28% drop in Akruti City. The Capital Goods index shed 2.5% at 5,774, and the Bankex dropped 2% to 4,056. The Metal index however gained 1.6% at 5,260.

The market breadth was marginally positive at close - out of 2,569 stocks traded, 1,245 advanced and 1,219 declined.

INDEX MOVERS...

Hindalco surged 5.7% to Rs 48. ONGC flared up 3.5% to Rs 755.

Tata Steel, Sun Pharma and HDFC gained around 1.5% each at Rs 176, Rs 1,036 and Rs 1,410, respectively.

Hindustan Unilever and Reliance Communications are up over 1% each at Rs 233 and Rs 158, respectively.

...AND THE SHAKERS

Tata Motors slumped over 6% to Rs 161.

ICICI Bank plunged 4.5% to Rs 323, and Larsen & Toubro tumbled 4% to Rs 585.

Maruti and BHEL shed 2.5% each at Rs 711 and Rs 1,380, respectively.

SBI and DLF declined around 1.5% each to Rs 954 and Rs 171, respectively.

OTHER PROMINENT GAINERS...

Gujarat NRE zoomed over 11% to Rs 21. GVK Power, Everest Kanto, Financial Technologies, Jai Corp, Zee Entertainment, Essar Oil and Hindustan Copper rallied 4-6% each.

...AND THE LOSERS

Akruti City slumped nearly 28% to Rs 1,608. Tulip Telecom crashed over 11% to Rs 371, and Jet Airways plunged over 10% to Rs 161. Ashok Leyland, Lanco Infrastructure, KSK Energy, Spice Telecom, Lupin, IRB Infrastructure and Kotak Bank were the other major losers.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Akruti City topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 455.65 crore followed by Reliance (Rs 165.75 crore), Educomp Solutions (Rs 136 crore), ICICI Bank (Rs 120.85 crore) and SBI (Rs 81.80 crore).

Firstsource led the volume chart with trades of around 1.29 crore shares followed by Cals Refineries (1.06 crore), Satyam (95.45 lakh), Gujarat NRE Coke (89.33 lakh) and Reliance Natural Resources (88.70 crore).