The Hindu Business Line : Markets end flat amid volatile trading

Stock markets witnessed high volatality on Wednesday, a day before the crucial SEBI board meeting on the P-Note issue, with benchmark index Sensex swinging more than 500 points intra-day before ending almost flat.

“There was a speculation about the P-Note issue, leading to a lot of short covering, although the undertone of the market seems quite firm. Once the SEBI meeting is through, market will have more clarity. There might be short-term liquidity impact,” said the CEO of a fund house. The current futures contract also expires on Thursday.

End flat on note

Sensex recorded an intraday high of 18,832.49 and low of 18,317.17, finally closing at 18,512.91.

S&P CNX Nifty too ended almost flat at 5,496.15, up 0.41 per cent. “We were expecting FIIs to be sellers today but it was the other way round as they bought substantially,” said a dealer from Emkay Institutional Dealing Desk.

FII were net buyers to the tune of Rs 1,301.87 crore according to NSE data.

Investors seem unconvinced about the rally as there was a lot of hedging of Nifty futures, said a dealer with a Mumbai-based brokerage house. While the overall market breadth was positive with 1,556 advances and 1,176 declines, the BSE-30 stocks had 13 advances and 17 declines.

Sectoral indices

Amongst sectoral indices, BSE-Metal went up by 2.47 per cent, BSE-CD was up by 2.98 per cent, whereas BSE-IT, BSE-Auto, BSE-Oil&Gas, and BSE-TECk were in red.

A section of traders believe that the P-Note issue has already been discounted by the market with SEBI’s clarification on Monday.

The major gainers today were Reliance Energy, which was up 8.58 per cent, SBI which jumped up 5.25 per cent and Tata Steel was up 2.23 per cent.

The major losers today were ONGC, which was down 3.18 per cent, Tata Motors which dipped 2.70 per cent and Infosys Technologies which lost 2.07 per cent.