The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) benchmark Sensex on Wednesday, again ended flat at 13,183.24 points as Tata Steel led a strong rally in metal shares in anticipation of a hike in steel prices.
Tata Steel alone jumped 3.29 per cent on reports that the country's largest private sector steel manufacturer is likely to launch a rights issue of nearly Rs 3,500 crore to part-finance its USD 12.15 billion acquisition of anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus Group.
Moving in a range of 13,294.90 and 13,161.21 points, the BSE bellwether index ended the day at 13,183.24 from Tuesday's close of 13,189.54, a loss of 6.30 points or 0.05 per cent.
The broader S&P CNX Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE), however, advanced further by 14.50 points or 0.38 per cent to close at 3,862.65 from previous close of 3,848.15.
Despite a cautious approach by operators ahead of the corporate earnings season, Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) have been accumulating shares of select blue chip companies for the past three days. FIIs pumped in Rs 1,486 crore (including Tuesday's provisional figure) in cash between April 5 and 10 while making purchases of Rs 909 crore in Futures on April 9 and 10.
Key counters like RIL, Hindalco, BHEL, Bharti Airtel and ONGC were strong on fresh institutional buying but a few others including SBI, HDFC Bank, HDFC, Grasim, ACC GACL, TCS Ltd, HLL, Dr Reddy's Lab and Ranbaxy Lab registered losses, preventing the market to close in positive territory. Asian markets, however, displayed encouraging trends. Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan indices remained firm.
{{/usCountry}}Key counters like RIL, Hindalco, BHEL, Bharti Airtel and ONGC were strong on fresh institutional buying but a few others including SBI, HDFC Bank, HDFC, Grasim, ACC GACL, TCS Ltd, HLL, Dr Reddy's Lab and Ranbaxy Lab registered losses, preventing the market to close in positive territory. Asian markets, however, displayed encouraging trends. Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan indices remained firm.
{{/usCountry}}