Sensex, Nifty End Little Changed; Banks Fall, Auto Shares Gain

The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 indexes ended little changed on Monday as gains in HDFC Bank, Reliance Industries, ITC, Maruti Suzuki and Bharti Airtel was offset with losses in ICICI Bank, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, State Bank of India and Axis Bank. The benchmarks opened higher but gave up gains in late morning deals as banking shares came under selling pressure. The Sensex rose as much as 140 points and the Nifty 50 index touched an intraday high of 12,286.

The Sensex ended 17 points or 0.04 per cent lower at 41,558 and the Nifty 50 index rose 10 points to close at 12,256.

Seven of 11 sector gauges compiled by National stock Exchange ended higher led by the Nifty Auto index's 1.5 per cent gain.

Nifty Metal, Media, Realty, FMCG and Realty indexes also rose between 0.3-1.2 per cent each.

On the other hand, Nifty PSU Bank index was top loser, down 1.2 per cent.

Tata Motors was top gainer in the Nifty 50 basket of shares, the stock rose 4.3 per cent to close at Rs 184 as it met investors like DSP Mutual Fund, Canara HSBC CIO and CGS- CIMB Securities.

Eicher Motors, UPL, Nestle India, Vedanta, Mahindra & Mahindra, Hero MotoCorp, Zee Entertainment and Hindalco were also among the gainers.

On the flipside, Yes Bank, ICICI Bank, State Bank of India, TCS, Indian Oil, Infosys, Asian Paints and Hindustan Unilever were among the losers.

The overall market breadth was positive as 1,452 shares ended higher while 1,118 closed lower on the BSE.