Discouraging global cues led the Indian markets to end on a negative note on Thursday. Alternate spells of buying and selling kept the markets volatile with 30-share Sensex moving in the range of 225.83 points before settling for 20,345.20 points, a loss of 120.10 points or 0.59%. Meanwhile, the S&P CNX Nifty closed flat at 6178.55 points after touching a new-all time high of 6,230.15.
Dealers said weak closing by the US stock markets on the very first trading day of the year coupled with high oil and gold prices dampened investors? spirit and even the small- and the mid-cap stocks could not continue their bullish momentum and fell in line with the heavy weights. They further added that negative cues from the European markets in the afternoon dragged the markets further in red. Amid volatility, the BSE Mid cap and the Small cap index managed to touch their new highs on Thursday before ending the day in the negative territory.
However, the overall market breadth was slightly positive with 1,612 shares rising as against 1,322 shares, which declined and value of 20 shares remained unchanged.
Among the sectoral indices all except BSE Metal, Oil and Gas and PSU were in with BSE Power index leading the way gaining 147.81 points or 3.17% to close at 4,806.12 points followed by BSE PSU which gained 237.01 points or 2.20% to close at 11,010.92 points.
On the derivatives segment, Nifty January futures was trading at a discount of 2.70 points at 6,175.30 points. The mini-derivatives contract, which began from January 1 ended in premiums with Mini Sensex for this month gaining 129.89 points compared to its spot price at 20,475.09 points and witnessed a turnover of Rs 21,374 crore while Mini Nifty of the January series ended flat witnessing a turnover of Rs187.86 crore.