Indian equity markets that started on a strong note were highly volatile and lost the gains and towards the session traded flat with a negative bias. At the close, Sensex ended up by just 7 pts at 47951, while Nifty gained 32 points to 14707.

The outliers in the trade have been the metal and realty pack, trading with gains of up to 3 percent on buying interest. Stock-wise top gainers are Tata Steel, Tata Motors, ONGC, Hindalco, UPL, while top losers are Kotak Mahindra, Adani Ports, Maruti Suzuki, Divis Labs and HDFC Bank

Among the sectoral indices, Metal stocks continued to rise with the Nifty Metal index closing 3.9 percent higher. Realty stocks have also gained in today's session. The Nifty Realty index ended with gains of 2.7 percent. Other outperformers today were oil PSUs like ONGC, GAIL, along with the Oil Marketing Companies.

Most other sectoral indices ended little changed. The Nifty Bank also traded in a 700 point range, eventually ending 0.4 percent lower. Broader markets outperformed the benchmarks in today's session. The Nifty Midcap index ended 1 percent higher while the Smallcap index gained a similar quantum to end with gains of 0.9 percent.

ONGC shares hit a one-year-high as oil prices are on the boil and stretched upward again by USD 1 as US production is at a slower rate.

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