Markets end on a sedate note

It was yet another listless day for the markets. The frontline indices traded in no-man's territory throughout the trading session before closing virtually unchanged from the previous day's levels.

The Sensex ended at 17554, lower by 30 points and the Nifty closed at 5250, down 9 points. Oil, consumer goods and metal sectors had a weak day.

There was a lot of activity in the broader space, though. The PSU index added more than 2%. Engineers India was locked at upper circuit limit of 20% at Rs 2079 after receiving the government's nod for a stake sale of 10%. State Trading Corporation and National Fertilizer added about 14% each.

Stocks such as Bombay Dyeing, EID Parry and Essar Shipping in the small-cap space, besides Bharati Shipyard and Kalyani Steel in the small-cap space gained in excess of 5% each.

Reliance Communication was the top stock gainer on the BSE, rising by 4.7% to Rs 191 on reports of having received the go-ahead from the market regulator for an initial public offering of its tower unit Reliance Infratel.

ACC ended higher by 3% at Rs 980 and Tata Motors closed up 1.8% at Rs 796.

India's second largest private sector bank, HDFC Bank inched up by 0.3% to Rs 1691 after reporting a surge of 32 per cent in net profit at Rs 818.50 crore in the third quarter ended December 31, 2009 as against Rs 621.74 crore during the same quarter a year ago.

And the third largest private sector bank Axis Bank jumped 1.5% to Rs 1078 after reporting a rise of 31 per cent in its net profit at Rs 655.98 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2009 from Rs 500.86 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year.

On the loser's side, Hindalco weakened by 2.6% at Rs 166 to emege as the top loser on the Sensex. Sun Pharma closed lower by 2% at Rs 1525 and ONGC ended down 1.4% at Rs 1213.

Index heavyweight Reliance closed down by more than 1% at Rs 1109.

The market breadth was neutral. Out of 2991 stocks traded on the BSE, there were 1406 advancing stocks as against 1514 declines.