Sensex, Nifty Break Five-Day Winning Streak; FMCG Shares Outperform

The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 indexes snapped their five-day winning streak as investors' booked profits at record highs as weekly index futures and option contracts expired. The benchmarks staged a gap down opening wherein the Sensex fell as much as 418 points and Nifty 50 index briefly fell below its important psychological level of 13,400. However, sustained buying in FMCG heavyweights like ITC, Britannia Industries, Nestle India and Hindustan Unilever helped benchmarks stage partial recovery from intraday low levels.

The Sensex ended 144 points lower at 45,960 and Nifty 50 index declined 51 points to settle at 13,478.

Eight of 11 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange ended lower led by the Nifty PSU Bank index's 1.5 per cent decline. Media, Private Bank, Financial Services and Bank indexes also fell between 0.7-1.5 per cent.

On the other hand, FMCG shares witnessed strong buying interest as the Nifty FMCG index climbed nearly 3 per cent.

Mid- and small-cap shares also faced selling pressure as Nifty Midcap 100 index declined 0.82 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index fell 0.5 per cent.

UPL was top Nifty loser, the stock fell 11.3 per cent to close at Rs 437. UltraTech Cement, Shree Cements, Tata Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra, GAIL India, Eicher Motors, Indian Oil, HDFC Bank, IndusInd Bank, Axis Bank and Grasim Industries also fell between 1.3-3 per cent each.

On the flipside, Nestle India, ITC, Britannia Industries, Hindustan Unilever, Adani Ports, Kotak Mahindra Bank and HDFC Life were among the gainers.

The overall market breadth was negative as 1,658 shares ended lower while 1,251 closed higher on the BSE.