Sensex slipped 54 points or 0.4% at 15,020 Nifty ended lower by 14 points to shut shop at 4,457.

Indian markets ended with marginal losses on Wednesday staging a strong recovery towards the last hour of the session. The swift recovery was led by the Realty, Pharma and Auto stocks. Even the Mid-Cap and the Small-Cap stocks attracted buying interest at lower levels.

Index heavyweight Bharti was the star of the day with HDFC Bank, Tata Motors and ITC among the other major gainers. The BSE Sensex recovered almost 320 points and the NSE Nifty recouped almost 100 points from their intra-day low.

Technically, the 50 Day moving average was the crucial level where the Nifty and Sensex both found support at on Wednesday. The Nifty and the Sensex managed to close above the important levels of 4,408 and 14,813 respectively.

India’s industrial production which was announced in afternoon accelerated in the month of June 2009 to 7.8% from 5.4% in the same period last year, the Government said on Wednesday. Markets had expected industrial output to rise 3.8% in the month of June. The Government announced that it has revised the May IIP figure to 2.2% from the provisional estimate of 2.7%.

The BSE Sensex slipped 54 points or 0.4% at 15,020 after touching a high of 15,043 and a low of 14,701. The index opened at 15,953 against the previous close of 15,074. The NSE Nifty ended lower by 14 points to shut shop at 4,457.

In Asia, the Nikkei in Japan ended lower by 1.4% at 10,435 while Australia's S&P/ASX ended flat at 4,343. The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong slipped 3% at 20,435. Shanghai index in China slipped by 4.6% at 3,112.
 
In Europe, stocks were trading mixed. The FTSE in the UK was flat. The DAX in Germany was up 0.3% and the CAC 40 index in France was up 0.2%.
 
Coming back to India, among the BSE sectoral indices, the Realty index was the top gainer, gaining 2.1%, followed by the Pharma index that was up 1.3%. The BSE Auto index up 0.3% and the BSE Consumer Durables index was up 0.3%.

On the other hand, BSE IT index ended with losses, down 1.7% followed by BSE Metal index up 1.6%.

The BSE Mid-Cap index erased early losses and ended higher by 0.3% and the BSE Small-Cap index gained by 0.5%. 

Within the Sensex, the major losers were Bharti, Tata Motors, DLF, Sun Pharma, JP Associates and HDFC bank. Among the major losers were Tata Steel, TCS, HUL, Infosys, Hindalco and ONGC.
 
Outside the frontline indices, the big gainers in the broader market were Pantaloon Retail, GMDC, Godrej Industries, Jai Corp, Indian Hotels, Tata Tea and IDFC. On the other hand, losers included REI Agro, M&M Finance, Union Bank, Yes Bank, Max India and Hindustan Zinc.

Shares of Axis Bank marginally gained by 0.5% to Rs870. According to reports, the company plans to issue 10.83mn shares, worth about US$190mn at current prices, to its founders as part of a larger share sale plan to beef up its capital base.

Jaiprakash Power Ventures Ltd and L&T signed an agreement worth Rs40bn for the supply and erection of the Boiler and Steam Turbine and Generator islands for the 2x660MW Jaypee Nigrie Super Thermal Power Project.

Shares of L&T ended lower by 1.5% to Rs1421. The stock opened at Rs1400 and made an intra-day high of Rs1433 and a low of Rs1391. Total traded volumes stood at 0.5mn shares.

Shares of Mphasis ended flat at Rs500. The company announced that it has signed definitive agreement to acquire AIG Systems Solutions Ltd, part of Amercian International Group Inc. AIGSS is an India-based provider of information technology services and solutions to AIG companies worldwide.

The stock hit an intra-day high of Rs522 and a low of Rs484. Total traded volumes stood at 0.32mn shares.

Shares of Orchid Chemical gained by 2% to Rs101 after the company announced the settlement of the patent litigation between Orchid and Schering-Plough relating to Desloratadine Tablets, 5 mg and Desloratadine 2.5 mg and 5 mg Orally Disintegrating Tablets (ODT), the generic versions of Schering-Plough's Clarinex® and Clarinex® RediTabs® allergy medication. The litigation has been pending in the U.S. District Court of New Jersey since September 2006.

Shares of PVR fell as much as 7% after the government announced that it orders to close down movie theatres in Mumbai for three days over a swine flu scare in the city.

Among the other major losers were Inox Leisure which declined 3% to Rs51 and Adlabs fell by 0.5% to Rs314. 

Mumbai, India’s commercial hub, shut schools and movie theatres as swine flu-related deaths rose to nine as of yesterday. Schools will close for seven days and malls and movie theatres for three to contain the virus, Prajakta Lavangare, a director general of the Maharashtra state government, said today.

Shares of EClerx Service shot up by over 7% to Rs332 after ~1.3mn equity shares changed hands in two transactions. That accounted to about 6.7% equity of the company. The stock opened at Rs315 and made an intra-day high of Rs340 and a low of Rs315. Total traded volumes stood at 6.5mn shares.