Our Markets Bureau

Mumbai, May 22: THE political uncertainty continued to cast its shadow on the stock markets on the last day of current settlement at the National Stock Exchange (NSE).

The Samata Party, after Monday’s threats, deferred from taking a decision about extending the support to NDA government at the Centre.

On Tuesday, the market remained almost flat after fluctuating in an extremely narrow range. However, the side counters saw hectic activity. The Sensex opened slightly better at 3643.29 and moved in a narrow range of 33 points throughout the day between a high of 3633.16 and a low of 3630.03 before closing at 3640.60, netting a gain of 0.5 point, while Nifty lost 1.35 points and closed at 1168.10.

Mr Arun Kejriwal of KRIS said, “The market is so dull that it has become difficult to carry on for five and half hour of trading time in front of the terminals. It certainly lacks direction.” Dealers said though the main counters witnessed very low volatility the side counters and second rung stocks from the new economy sectors were in huge demand.

The lack of interest in the main counters was also because of the Sebi diktat to compulsorily unwind the positions on or before July 2. As a result of this, the operators have shifted their focus to low priced new economy stocks which have began to attract higher volatility, they added.

Except Dr Reddy’s counter, which gained 7 per cent on expectation of some good financial announcement and closed at Rs 1,362.10, all other main counters like Satyam Computer, Bajaj Auto, Ranbaxy Laboratories, Hindalco, Zee Telefilms and NIIT gained marginally by 1-2 per cent.

However, scores of stocks including PSI Datasystems, Mastek and Tata Elxsi were locked in the upper circuit of 16 per cent while others like Polaris, Titan Ind, Max Ind, Syngenta, Atlas Copco, ShriRama Multitech and Sun Pharma were locked in the upper circuit of 8 per cent.