Mumbai: Grasim Ind hogged the limelight as the market ended flat in erratic movements at the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on June 18 on good buying by speculators and foreign funds, alternated by selling by domestic funds.

Grasim Industries was in limelight and shares like ACC, BSES, HDFC, HPCL, Hindalco, ITC, Nestle, Telco and Tisco, that have sizeable weightage in the SENSEX, also registered marked gains on buying support.

However, RIL, SBI, Satyam Computer, Infosys Tech, Zee Telefilms, Ranbaxy Lab, L&T, Hero Honda, Dr Reddy's and Bajaj Auto suffered a sharp setback due to selling by local funds.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened on a promising note at 3440.69 and later was trapped in a range between 3452.73 and 3417.74 as a result of mixed trend, before ending at 3430.96 as against yesterday's close of 3431.03, a minor variation of 0.07 point.

The broad-based BSE-100 Index, however, firmed up further by 13.55 points to 15-month high at 1758.50 from previous close of 1744.95.

Brokers said operators were still bullish on the back of sustained net investments by Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), which have been making net purchases for the past several weeks.

Speculators were believed to have created large positions in select counters on encouraging factors like the arrival of monsoon and indication of government's positive steps on disinvestment programme.

PTI