Mkts flat amid low volatility, RIL, ICICI down

New Delhi: The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark index Sensex opened lower by over 26 points Monday on emergence of profit selling by retail investors.

The Sensex traded lower by 26.75 at 14,440.61 in the first five minutes of trading. The National Stock Exchange's index Nifty was also down by 11.30 points at 4,240.75.

The markets were trading flat in the red zone amid low volatility since opening. All the key BSE indices were in marginal green except the BSE bankex, which was down over 50 points. Volumes were low however the breadth was nearly 2:1.

At 10.24 hours IST, the Sensex was down 17.07 points or 0.12% at 14,450.29, and the Nifty down 2.40 points or 0.06 per cent at 4249.65. About 1067 shares advanced, 536 shares declined, and 33 shares remained unchanged at 10:24 hours IST.

Top gainers on the Sensex were Reliance Energy at Rs 601.50 up 1.91%, BHEL at Rs 1,459.90 up 1.37% and ONGC at Rs 920.50 up 1.30%.

Top losers on the Sensex were HDFC at Rs 1,858 down 1.15%, ICICI Bank at Rs 945.50 down 0.87% and Maruti Udyog at Rs 758 down 0.52%.

Most active shares on BSE were Reliance at Rs 1,698 with 1,20,504 shares, Educomp Sol at Rs 2,337 with 69,033 shares and Praj Industries at Rs 478 with 2,65,856 shares

Reliance, ICICI Bank, L&T, HUL, Satyam, Tata Steel, Sterlite Industries and ITC were down in the opening trade.

Asian Markets: Asian markets were trading mixed today following sharp US losses, Japan's Nikkei plunged 0.51% or 92.49 points at 18,096.14, Singapore's Straits Times was down 0.44% or 15.91 points at 3,599.47, However, Taiwan's Taiwan Weighted surged 1.63% or 144.02 points at 8,956.93, Hong Kong's Hang Seng was up 0.04% or 9.72 points 22,009.63 and South Korea's Seoul Composite rose 0.48% or 8.54 points at 1,779.52.

Market cues:

• FIIs net buy USD 402.5 mn in equity on June 21
• FII's June 21 includes money from DLF IPO
• MFs trade figure for June 21 not reported yet
• NSE F&O Open Interest up by Rs 1,270 crore (Rs 12.70 billion) to Rs 75,711 crore (Rs 757.11 billion)

With inputs from moneycontrol.com