Market struggles to stay afloat, Nifty down 28 pt

Mumbai, Feb 10 (PTI) Shares continued to dip furtherfollowing a weak sentiment driving the benchmark S&P CNX Niftyto a eight-month low before recovering marginally towards theclose but still 28 points down over the previous close.

The 50-share index hovered between 5,272.60 and 5,196.80before ending at 5,225.80, down by 27.75 points, or 0.53 percent over its previous close.

The session which opened weak witnessed a massivesell-off in heavy-weights amidst high volatility bogging downkey-index to trade below 5,200-level, a fresh eight month low.

But, some short covering along with low level buying helpedthe market to recover.

Besides frontline shares, sell-off was seen inIndex-heavy weights shares from IT and telecom space. However,the overnight beaten down mid-cap and small-cap shares foundsome buyers.

SBI, Bharti Airtel, Infosys, Sterlite Industries, HDFC,Dr Reddy''s, Hindalco, BHEL, Ambuja Cements and Reliance werethe top losers from the Nifty.

Reliance Infra, JP Associates, SAIL, Ranbaxy, IDFC, TataMotors, Sun Pharma, RCOM, Reliance Capital and ITC were thenotable gainers.

Total turnover in the cash segment declined to Rs14,836.64 crore from Rs 15,803.76 crore yesterday. A total of9,145.92 lakh shares changed hands in 79,50,931 trades. Themarket capitalisation stood at Rs 60,50,262 crore at the endof the day.