In a lacklustre but see-saw trade, the benchmark Sensex survived to settle in positive terrain --just up by 33 points-- to close at 18,610.77 on alternate bouts of buying and selling amid positive cues from overseas.
Fresh selling by Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) also put some what pressure on the market. FIIs, who bought shares worth over Rs 10,997 crore in the current month till October 15 as per Sebi figures, sold shares worth Rs 204.18 crore yesterday as per provisional data with stock exchanges.
According to analysts, investors are just watching the incoming of Q2 results by some major companies, which have just began, for future action.
Most of the gains registered by ITC, HDFC, L&T, ICICI Bank, Infosys and Tata Motors were offset by losses in RIL, TCS, HDFC Bank, SBI and Gail.
The Bombay Stock Exchange 30-share barometer resumed up and touched a high of 18,705.19. But, later it continued to decline and moved in a narrow range before recovering some ground to settle at 18,610.77, exhibiting a mere rise of 33.07 points or 0.18 per cent. Yesterday, it had fallen by 135.85 points or 0.73 pct.
The broad-based S&P CNX Nifty of the NSE also eased by 12.25 points or 0.22 pct to 5,660.25.
Asian shares ended narrowly mixed with upward bias after US industrial production beat estimates and Spain retained its investment-grade credit rating from Moody's Investors Service, marketmen said.
Key indices in China, Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea finished in the green while from Singapore and Taiwan settled with minor losses.
European markets, however, were trading higher in their afternoon deals after ratings agency Moody's decided to retain Spain's investment grade credit rating. The CAC was up by 0.29 pct, the DAX by 0.17 pct and the FTSE by 0.30 pct.
From the Sensex 30-share, 18 ended with losses while 12 others finished with gains. Major gainers were Tata Power (2.12 pct), HDFC (1.22 pct), BHEL (1.02 cpt), Larsen (1.02 pct), Tata Motors (0.99 pct), Bharti Airtel (0.93 pct), ITC (0.81 pct) and Icici bank (0.72 pct).
However Gail India fell by 1.98 pct, followed by TCS 1.05 pct, Reliance Ind 0.97 pct, Sun Pharma 0.86 pct, SBI 0.64 pct and HSFC bank 0.51 pct.
Among the sectoral indices, the BSE-CD firmed up 0.63 pct, BSE-CG 0.60 pct, BSE-Auto 0.50 pct and BSE-Power 0.43 pct while BSE-Realty eased by 0.62 pct followed by BSE-Oil&Gas 0.53 pct.
The market breadth continued to show negative trend as 1,543 stocks finished with losses while 1,329 ended with gains. The total turnover at BSE declined to Rs 2,066.84 crs from Rs 2,936.31 crore yesterday.