Thursday, November 10 2005 17:35 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: The stock market today (Nov 10, 2005) ended flat in volatile trade for the second consecutive session as Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) absorbed sales made by domestic funds and operators at the higher levels.

The range-bound activity largely attributed to foreign funds and Indian financial institutions coming face-to-face, is expected to remain for a few days following the market's dramatic rally of a massive 632 points in just a five days between October 31 and November eight.

The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Benchmark 30-shar Index (Sensex) opened higher at 8314.39 and later fluctuated in a limited range of 8342.53 and 8265.26 before ending the day at 8308.93 as against yesterday's close of 8308.78, a small variation of 0.15 point.

FIIs, which were believed to be heavy buyers, generally absorbed sales made by domestic mutual funds and retailers at the day's higher levels. FIIs have pumped in Rs 1575 crore in the first four trading days of the month. The market is unlikely to witness any major slide as the 8270 is considered as a strong support level, brokers said.

IT and PSU sectors attracted fairly good buying support from institutional investors.

Select key counters like SBI, BHEL, Hindalco, ONGC, REL, TCS Ltd, Tata Motors, Infosys Tech and SBI scored handsome gains on fairly good purchases by foreign funds.

However, RIL, HDFC, HLL, Bajaj Auto, Dr Reddy's Lab, ACC, Satyam Computers, L&T and Grasim suffered sharp losses due to profit booking by investors.