The Indian equity benchmarks edged lower after a flat start led by losses in HDFC Bank, HDFC, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Reliance Industries, Infosys, Titan and Maruti Suzuki. The Sensex fell nearly 350 points from the day’s highest level and Nifty 50 index was hovering around its important psychological level of 18,000.
As of 11:00 am, the Sensex fell 149 points to 60,396 and Nifty 50 index declined 42 points to 18,026.
As of 9:39 am, the Sensex was advanced 91 points to 60,636 and Nifty 50 index was up 38 points at 18,106.
Eleven of 15 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading higher led by the Nifty Pharma index’s 1.4 per cent gain. Nifty Auto, IT, Realty and Healthcare indices were trading higher in the range of 0.6-1.3 per cent.
On the other hand, Nifty Bank, Financial Services and FMCG indices were trading with a negative bias.
Mid- and small-cap shares were outperforming their larger peers as Nifty Midcap 100 advanced 1 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index rose 0.3 per cent.
Hero MotoCorp was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose 2.14 per cent to Rs 2,740. Mahindra & Mahindra, IndusInd Bank, ONGC, Divi’s Labs, Tata Motors, Sun Pharma, Bajaj Auto, UPL, Wipro and Tata Steel also rose between 1-2 per cent.
On the flipside, Britannia Industries, HDFC, Nestle India, Power Grid, HDFC Bank, Reliance Industries, Indian Oil, HDFC Life, Axis Bank and Bharat Petroleum were among the losers.
The overall market breadth was positive as 1,885 shares were advancing while 750 were declining on the BSE.
