BackSensex, Nifty surrender intra-day gains to close flat
India's benchmark 30-share Sensex falls 5.94 points, or 0.02%, to 26,299 . The Nifty50 of National Stock Exchange rises 3.15 points, or 0.04%, to close at 8,111.60
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Mumbai: Sensex gave up its initial gains and ended marginally lower, pulled down by consumer durables, healthcare and metal counters following a bout of fag-end profit booking, while the Nifty managed to close above the 8,100-mark.
Participants are keeping an eye on the winter session of Parliament, which started on Wednesday, and US fiscal policies to be followed by President-elect Donald Trump. Investors are still in a risk-off mode, taking cues from global markets that were on the back foot ahead of Fed Chair Janet Yellen’s testimony on Thursday. “The market rebounded as investors used the advantage of a drop in valuation while the selling at higher levels pulled back the market to close flat," said Vinod Nair, head of research, Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services.
Sensex started off on a strong footing and advanced to a high of 26,621.40. However, it succumbed to profit-booking at higher levels, falling to 26,239.21, before settling 5.94 points or 0.02% lower at 26,298.69. The gauge had lost 1,213.05 points in previous two sessions to touch a nearly six-month low after fears of acute cash crunch arising out of demonetisation unnerved investors amid capital outflows by foreign funds. NSE Nifty, however, managed to close in the positive zone with a small gain of 3.15 points, or 0.04%, at 8,111.60 after shuttling between 8,210.05 and 8,089.40.
However, easing inflation numbers, both WPI and CPI, offering more room to RBI to lower rate gave investors some level of comfort. Rupee remained on a weak wicket against the dollar, losing 20 paise to close at 67.94. The BSE mid-cap index provisionally rose 0.56%, while the small-cap index gained 0.05 %. Major losers included ITC (2.94%), Dr Reddy’s (2.89%), Cipla (2.55%), Lupin (2.27%) and Sun Pharma (2.13%). Consumer durables fell by 1.97%, followed by healthcare (1.34%), metal (1.07%) and bankex (0.96%).
Meanwhile, foreign funds sold shares worth a net Rs2,353.82 crore on Tuesday, as per provisional data released by the stock exchanges. Overseas, most Asian stocks ended higher tracking overnight gains in US markets, as energy shares climbed on the back of rising crude oil prices. Key indices in Asia like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan rose by 0.35% to 1.10% while indices in Hong Kong, China and Singapore fell by 0.06% to 0.19%.
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