Rangebound Sensex Ends Higher, Nifty Settles At 9,638

The Sensex and Nifty ended today's rangebound session with marginal gains on the back of buying in bluechip stocks like Reliance industries, Mahindra & Mahindra, ICICI Bank and Lupin. However, the gains in the benchmark indices were capped as ITC, Infosys, HDFC, TCS and Bharti Airtel came under selling pressure on account of profit-taking. For the most part of the day, the Sensex and Nifty traded in a narrow band with Nifty moving in a range of 36 points and the Sensex touching high of 31,285 and low of 31,178.

The Sensex ended 36 points or 0.11 per cent higher at 31,245 and the Nifty jumped 24 points to shut shop at 9,638.

On the sectoral front, buying was visible in oil & gas, metal, banking and auto shares while IT and FMCG shares faced the heat of selling pressure.

From the Nifty basket of shares, 39 ended higher while 12 closed lower. Lupin was the top Nifty gainer, up 4 per cent at Rs. 1,084. Mahindra & Mahindra, Ambuja Cements, Yes Bank, UltraTech Cement, Vedanta, Reliance Industries, Tata Motors and Axis Bank were also among the gainers. On the other hand, ITC was the top Nifty loser, the stock fell for second day on account of profit-booking. Infosys, Bharti Airtel, HDFC, TCS, HDFC Bank, HCL Tech, Maruti Suzuki and Wipro were also among the laggards.

Among the individual shares, shares of IDFC Bank jumped over 7 per cent after the bank settled a probe by markets regulator Sebi into alleged violation of insider trading and share takeover norms for a payment of Rs. 10.74 lakh towards settlement charges.

Sebi agreed to settle proposed adjudication proceedings in the case, pertaining to dealings in shares of Deccan ChronicleBSE -4.17 % Ltd, after it was approached by IDFC Bank Ltd with a plea under the settlement regulations "without admitting or denying the findings of fact and conclusion of law".

Shares bearing makers came in huge demand on the stock exchanges after Timken India board approved the merger of ABC Bearings with the company.

ABC Bearings surged 20 per cent  to record high of Rs. 287 while Timken India rose 7 per cent to Rs. 725.

The broader markets outperformed the benchmark indices with BSE mid-cap and small-cap indices up 1 per cent.

The overall market breadth was positive as 1,602 shares were advancing while 902 were declining on the BSE.