The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 Indexes erased intraday gains owing to selling pressure in stocks like Indiabulls Housing Finance, Yes Bank, Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank, Mahindra & Mahidra and Bharti Airtel. The Sensex dropped as much as 555 points from intraday high of 39,435.80 and the NSE Nifty 50 Index fell below important level of 11,950. The benchmarks opened higher and Sensex advanced nearly 400 points and the Nifty moved above important psychological level of 11,800 on the back of buying interest in banking and metal shares.
As of 3:05 pm, the Sensex traded 0.04 per cent lower at 39,030 and the NSE Nifty 50 Index was down 0.14 per cent or 16 points at 11,675.
Indiabulls Housing Finance was top losers, the stock fell as much as 20 per cent to a fresh 52-week low of Rs 487.85 on the back of heavy volumes. Over 24 lakh shares changed hands on the BSE compared with an average of 16.88 lakh shares traded daily in the past two weeks.
Yes Bank, UPL, Hero MotoCorp, Indian Oil, Tata Motors, Bharat Petroleum, Bharti Airtel and Tech Mahindra were also among the losers.
On the other hand, Tata Steel was top gainer in the Nifty 50 basket of shares, the stock rose 3.7 per cent to Rs 490. Zee Entertainment, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Power Grid, NTPC, HDFC, Hindalco and Eicher Motors were also among the gainers, up between 0.8 and 2.7 per cent each.
Eight of 11 sector gauges compiled by National Stock Exchange were trading lower led by the Nifty Pharma Index's 1.6 per cent decline.
On the flipside, Nifty Realty Index was top gainer, up 0.7 per cent.
Mid- and small-cap shares were underperforming their larger peers as the Nifty Midcap 100 Index declined 0.8 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 Index fell 1 per cent.
The overall market breadth was extremely negative as 1,632 shares were trading lower while 679 were trading higher on the BSE.
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