Despite displaying sluggishness throughout the day, equity markets managed to end its losing streak to close marginally higher. Markets started the day tad lower following uncertainty in Asian markets however it moved higher towards higher session though in an extremely narrow range and ended the day just above the flat line. It was buying by foreign funds that improved market sentiments. Market breadth turned positive during the day as on BSE, 1,354 shares rose and 1,330 shares fell.
The BSE Sensex touched a high of 16,370 and a low of 16,123 before it ended 0.7% or 112 points higher at 16,328. The mid cap stocks moved in line with the large cap stocks while the small cap stocks displayed slight underperformance. Both the BSE Mid-cap and BSE Small-cap indices ended 0.6% and 0.3% higher respectively.
Of the indices in the BSE sectoral space only the BSE FMCG index ended weak with index heavyweight ITC shedding 1.4% during the day. On the other hand, the capital goods stocks displayed quite strong performance with index heavyweight L&T surging over 5%. The BSE capital Goods index gained 3.1%. This was followed by the BSE Metal index which grew by 2.2% on the back of rising prices on LME. Among the other key gainers were the BSE IT and BSE Teck indices which each grew by 1.6% and 1.1% respectively.
Among the BSE – 30 stocks, 11 stocks were in red with the rest gaining. L&T, Sun Pharma, Sterlite Industries, Infosys and Hero Motor were the top five gainers. On the contrary, NTPC, Maruti, ITC, Bharti Airtel and Gail were the key losers.
As per the data released by SEBI, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were net buyers in equity to the tune of Rs 404 crores. Similarly, they were net buyers in debt segments to the tune of Rs 803 crores.