Market exhausts relief rally, Nifty ends flat

Mumbai, Feb 16 (PTI) The relief rally looked like runningout of the steam as the benchmark S&P CNX Nifty managed to endthe highly volatile session on a flat note at the NationalStock Exchange (NSE) here today.

The 50-share index hovered between 5,504.80 and 5,460.35before settling at 5,481.70, a mere gain of 0.70 point overits previous close.

The session commenced on a quiet note in the absence ofany large-scale buying and soon slipped into red due to profitbooking in financial space and oil & gas.

The key index traded range-bound for the most part of theday with equal amount of buying and selling pressure building,before it finally managed to conclude the session on a flatnote.

The volatile session witnessed buying in FMCG, infra, ITand select financial counters which were very supportive andwiped out the initial losses to post marginal gain.

"The directionless market is likely to be in volatilesituation for a while till the budget session which could bethe next major trigger for the bourses," traders said.

JP Associates, Tata Steel, Jindal Steel, Wipro, AmbujaCement, Tata Power, Axis bank, L&T, PNB and Suzlon were thetop gainers from Nifty.

However, HDFC, IDFC, HCL Tech, Sun Pharma, Dr Reddy,RCOM, Hero Honda, M&M, Ranbaxy and Cipla were top losers.

Total turnover in the cash segment fell sharply to Rs10,901.70 crore from Rs 13,488.35 crore yesterday. A total of6,473.87 lakh shares changed hands in 56,31,286 trades. Themarket capitalisation stood at Rs 63,78,661 crore.