Sensex ends flat, closes at 10,162 points

Mumbai, Jun 29: The benchmark index BSE today relinquished all the days gain in dying moments of trading, to end flat by 30 points compared to the previous close.

The bull market liquidated its position as the June 2006 derivatives contract expired today. Even the firm Asian markets could not protect the last half an hour fall in the Sensex.

Earlier the sensitive index opened in the green and recovered strongly inspired by the performance of Asian markets. Experts feel, the expected hike in the Fed rates today would not impact the strong fundamentals of the Indian economy.

The Fed Fund Futures expects 80 per cent chances of rate hike in August. Besides, there are two sections within the traders, investors and market analysts who feel there will be hike in the fed rates by 25 basic points (bps) and other who feel it will be by 50 bps, however, all are of the opinion that the hike will not impact the market sentiments much.

All the sectoral indices on the BSE were in green, except Bankex which was 0.36 to 4227.63. FMCG was down by 0.74 to 1868.80 points and metals was down by 0.86 per cent to 7976.33 per cent.

Major gainers on the index were- Hero Honda, L&T, HDFC Bank, Tata Motors, Wipro, Ranbaxy, Reliance Communications, ONGC, Grasim Industries, and HDFC.

Top gainers on the index were- Bajaj Auto up 3.58 per cent to Rs 2682.55, TCS up by 3.12 per cent to Rs 1693.95, Hindalco was up by 2.07 per cent to Rs 164.85, Wipro was up by 1.90 per cent to Rs 483.60, and BHEL, RIL, Reliance Energy, Grasim, Industries, Hero Honda and ITC wer all up between 0.68 per cent to 1.67 per cent. The losers on the index were- Reliance communications, HDFC, ONGC, Ranbaxy, Dr Reddy's Lab, SBI, ICICI, HLL, HDFC Bank and ACC all down between 1.03 per cent to 4.74 per cent.

The breadth in the broader market was in favour of 1153 declines as against 683 advances out of total 1903 scrips traded on the BSE Sensex today.

UNI