Sensex, Nifty Erase Gains Weighed Down By Selling In Private Sector Lenders

The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 indexes erased gains in late morning deals as private sector lenders, pharma and metal shares came under selling pressure. The benchmarks opened on a positive note wherein the Sensex surged as much as 276 points and Nifty 50 index moved above its important psychological level of 10,550. Gains in Asian Paints, ITC, HDFC and Tata Consultancy Services were offset with losses in ICICI Bank, Bharti Airtel, Axis Bank and HCL Technologies.

As of 11:38 am, the Sensex was down 64 points or 0.18 per cent at 35,366 and Nifty was at 10,456, down 15 points or 0.14 per cent,

Six of 11 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading ower led by the Nifty Private Bank index's nearly 1 per cent loss. Nifty Bank, Pharma, Metal and Realty indexes were trading with a negative bias.

On the other hand, Nifty FMCG index was top gainer, up 0.95 per cent.

Mid- and small-cap shares were in-line with their larger peers as both the Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 indexes rose 0.1 per cent.

IndusInd Bank was top Nifty loser, the stock fell 2.3 per cent to Rs 508. Power Grid, ONGC, ICICI Bank, Cipla, Axis Bank, Bharti Airtel, Bharat Petroleum, UPL, HCL Technologies, Bajaj Finserv and Hindalco also fell between 1.3-2 per cent each.

On the flipside, Asian Paints surged nearly 8 per cent to hit an intraday high of Rs 1,813.10 on BSE a day after company reported a 5 per cent, year-on-year, decline in net profit at Rs 452 crore.

Hero MotoCorp, Tata Motors, ITC, Titan, Bajaj Auto, Nestle India, HDFC, TCS and Vedanta were also among the gainers.

The overall market breadth was positive as 1,379 shares were advancing while 1,055 were declining on the BSE.