Sensex closes flat; oil and gas, auto stocks fall

A benchmark index of Indian equities markets closed flat Thursday after oil and gas, auto and capital goods stocks came under intense selling pressure.

The 30-scrip sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened at 17,856.29 points, closed 17,850.22 points, 0.02 percent or 3.36 points up from its previous day's close at 17,846.86 points.

At one time, it was trading around 100 points higher.
The Sensex touched a high of 17,972.54 points and a low of 17,792.87 points in intra-day trade.

"Market was volatile due to settlement consideration. Heavyweight RIL, Larsen & Toubro and ONGC corrected on profit booking," Kishore P. Ostwal, chairman and managing director, CNI Research, said.

The wider 50-scrip S&P CNX Nifty of the National Stock Exchange closed 0.05 percent up at 5,415.35 points.

The BSE oil and gas index was down 89.51 points followed by the auto index, down 80.31 points, and the capital goods index, down 76.63 points.

The main Sensex losers were RIL, down 1.68 percent at Rs.794.45; Larsen and Toubro, down 1.63 percent at Rs.1,433; ONGC, down 1.59 percent at Rs.281.60; Mahindra and Mahindra, down 1.55 percent at Rs.771.65; Tata Motors, down 1.09 percent at Rs.245.20.

The major Sensex gainers were Wipro, up 2.61 percent at Rs.363.45; TCS, up 2.25 percent at Rs.1321.15; Infosys, up 1.73 percent at Rs.2,471.50; Tata Steel, up 1.53 percent at Rs.398.60 and Hindustan Unilever, up 1.45 percent at Rs.518.95.

Among other Asian markets, Japan's Nikkei closed up 0.51  percent while Shanghai's composite index closed 0.25 percent higher. Hong Kong's Hang Seng closed 1.23 percent up.

At closing bell here, European markets were in the green too. France's CAC was up 0.12 percent. Germany's DAX and Britain's FTSE 100 were up 0.12 percent and 0.33 percent respectively.