21 July 2010 Closing Market Updates

21 July 2010 Closing Market Updates  17:45

The benchmark Nifty has recouped previous day's losses and closed just one point short at 5400 level, led by technology, metal, oil & gas, auto, cement and realty companies' shares. ICICI Bank, L&T and ITC were other gainers. However, the sell-off in telecom companies' shares along with HDFC, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, SBI, BHEL, HUL, NTPC, Sun Pharma, ABB and Cipla capped the gains to major extent. It was the seventh consecutive session that markets witnessed consolidation. Global cues kept the indices in positive terrain today. European markets like France's CAC, Britain's FTSE and Germany's DAX were trading 1.77%, 1.57% and 1.37% higher, at the time of closing of Indian equities. The 30-share BSE Sensex closed at 17,977.23, up 99.09 points and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 31.35 points to settle at 5,399.35. The Nifty August futures ended at 10 points premium, as per provisional data.

The Nifty is likely to trade rangebound between 5440 on the upside and 5270 on the downside. This band is expected to be broken only when some of the big names or index heavyweights start participating in this particular game e.g. of Reliance (its results on July 27) and some capital goods and realty players. Mentioned in the previous blogs, if the Nifty trading above 5,440 with good volumes and index stocks will see a upside upto 5670 in next 2-3 months.Buying in technology post Apple's upbeat revenue forecast, financials ahead of stress tests on 91 European banks and mining companies' shares after 16% quarterly rise in iron ore output of BHP Billiton helped the European markets today. US index futures were marginally in green.

Among BSE Sectoral Indices,Metal shone the most as Metal Index rose the most by 3.16% whereas Healthcare Index was the only loser by 0.27%Among Nifty50 stocks, Tatasteel rose the most by 4.43% to close at 531.90.Axis Bank was the top loser by 1.68% and closed at 1346.Overall market breadth was positive as 734 stocks gained and 565 stocks declined today on NSE.