The Indian equity benchmarks were little changed on Monday as gains in Tata Steel, Mahindra & Mahindra, NTPC, Bajaj Finserv, HDFC and ITC were offset with losses in Bajaj Auto, Power Grid, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Tech Mahindra and Maruti Suzuki. Meanwhile, other Asian markets were trading lower after a raft of Chinese data showed a surprisingly sharp slowdown in the engine of global growth, just as much of the world races to stem the spread of the Delta variant of COVID-19 with vaccinations.
As of 9:26 am, the Sensex was up 50 points at 55,488 and Nifty rose 5 points to 16,533.
There was added uncertainty about the possible geopolitical implications of the sudden collapse of the Afghan government and what it means for political stability in the region.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan eased 0.2 per cent, nudging back toward the lows for the year touched last month.
Back home, foreign institutional investors bought shares worth Rs 820 crore on Friday while domestic institutional investors shares worth Rs 149 crore.
Twelve of 15 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading higher led by the Nifty Metal index's nearly 0.5 per cent gain. Nifty PSU Bank, Realty, Healthcare and Financial Servises indices were also trading with a positive bias.
On the other hand, Nifty IT, Media and Consumer Durable indices were trading lower.
Mid- and small-cap shares were largely in line with the benchmarks as Nifty Midcap 100 index rose 0.1 per cent while Nifty Smallcap 100 index declined 0.3 per cent.
Mahindra & Mahindra was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose nearly 2 per cent to Rs 792. Tata Steel, Grasim Industries, NTPC, Bajaj Finserv, ITC, Adani Ports, ONGC, Bharat Petrolem, Nestle India and HDFC were among the losers.
On the flipside, Power Grid, Bajaj Auto, Tech Mahindra, Larsen & Toubro, TCS, Maruti Suzuki, Divis Labs, Hero MotoCorp, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Hindalco were among the losers.
The overall market breadth was negative as 1,634 shares were dvancing while 1,049 were advancing on the BSE.
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