Market crouches over Raja''s arrest, Nifty up by 15 pts

Mumbai, Feb 2 (PTI) A situational limp over the arrest offormer Telecom Minister A Raja wavered the market sentimentwith most of the initial gains fizzling out as the benchmarkCNX Nifty ended a modest 15 points higher at the NationalStock Exchange (NSE) here today.

The 50-share index shuttled between 5,490.60 and 5,415.65before closing at 5,432.00, up 14.80 points or 0.27 per centover its previous close.

Taking cues from overnight rally in US markets andminimal support from Asian peers, trading commenced on ahighly bullish tone driven by hectic shortcovering and lowlevel buying from its oversold positions.

The key index consolidated each and every gain whilemarching ahead till the news of Raja''s arrest, along with twoassociates in connection with the 2G spectrum scam, gotflashed pulling down the index all the way to red zone, beforethe market limped back to recover modestly.

Hectic buying in heavy weights along with IT and energystocks played the supportive role.

"The market could have rallied with a high degree ofoptimism had not the investors resorted to hectic profitselling in view of the negative sentiments generated," traderssaid.

Tata Motors, TCS, Reliance, Bharti Airtel, HCL Tech,Sterlite Industries, Hindalco, BPCL, ICICI Bank and DLF werethe top gainers.

However, Hero Honda, Bajaj Auto, HDFC, NTPC, BHEL, KotakBank, RPower, Maruti, Rcom and Sesa Goa registered losses.

Total turnover in the cash segment declined to Rs 13,500crore from Rs 13,696.99 crore yesterday. A total of 6,794.99lakh shares changed hands in 58,40,418 trades. The marketcapitalisation stood at Rs 63,71,976 crore.