Sensex moves up by 44 points to 10,885 but remains directionless

Mumbai, Mar 23 (UNI) In a directionless trading the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Sensitive Index (Sensex) was trading with a gain of 44.51 points at 10,885 around 1345 hrs.

Earlier Sensex opened 20 points up at 10,861 as compared to the last close of 10,841 points but high volatility so far had seen it move erratically.

The Sensex gained 83 points to touch a high of 10,924 points this morning but later dipped to a low of 10,792 registering a dip of 132 points in the intra-day trading so far.

Yesterday, Sensex had closed 64 points down at 10,841 points on profit booking.

The US markets closed in the green today but Asian markets had a mixed day as the Japanese markets closed marginally lower but others Asian indices gained.

The crude oil prices however, was still above USD 62 per barrel at USD 62.55 per barrel in the New York Mercantile Exchange this afternoon, which was putting pressure on the markets.

All sectoral indices, barring one, were trading in the green.

Infotech companies were under pressure with the BSE IT index in the red marginally.

BSE Metal index was on fire gaining a huge 3.14 per cent this afternoon and all other sectoral indices were showing less than a per cent gains on the BSE.

The leading gainers amongst the metal stock were Tata Steel leading the Sensex gainers list with a gain of 3.39 per cent at Rs 485.15, Steel Authority of India was up by more than nine per cent at Rs 74.80 gaining by Rs 6.70, Hindalco was up by 2.44 per cent at Rs 161.75.

Other gainers were Jindal Steel up by 3.87 per cent at Rs 1,753 and Gujarat NRE Coke was up by 8.85 per cent at Rs 99.90 Top gainers on the 30-share Sensex were Tata Steel, SBI, Bajaj Auto, Hindalco, ITC, Ranbaxy, Reliance Industries, Larsen&Toubro, ACC and Wipro.

The top losers on the Sensex were Dr Reddy's Lab, Bharti Tele, HDFC Bank, Reliance Energy, Tata Motors, Infosys, Maruti, TCS, Grasim Industries and ONGC.

Two huge block deals on the stock markets today, in the first deal ICICI Bank's 27 lakh shares changed hands in the Foreign Institutional segment at Rs 604.50 per share and in other deal 1.2 crore shares of Reliance changed hands in three deals on the NSE.

The National Stock Exchange 50-share S&P CNX Nifty index traded 19 points up at 3,259 points at 1352 hrs. Earlier, the Nifty opened flat at 3240.85 as compared to the last close of 3240.15 points.

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