The benchmark indices ended flat, with a negative bias, amid a choppy session of trade to make it three successive days of decline. Gains in information technology shares were offset with losses in banking and financial services stocks. The Sensex oscillated in a range of almost 600 points between an intra-day high of 50,857.55 and a low of 50,289.44 before ending the session at 50,363.96, down 31.12 points and the Nifty swung between a high of 15,051.60 and a low of 14,890.65 before ending at 14,910.45, down 19.05 points.
Rising coronavirus cases in the country and latest retail inflation figures are dampening the investor sentiment, analysts said.
The broader markets outperformed the larger peers, with the BSE Midcap index and BSE Smallcap indices gaining around 0.30 per cent each.
Meanwhile, the rupee ended lower by 7 paise at 72.55, amid volatile trading in the equity markets. It had opened flat at 72.49 per dollar against previous close of 72.48 and traded in the range of 72.36-72-64.
On the primary market front, Kalyan Jewellers IPO witnessed 41 per cent subscription, with the retail portion attracting 77 per cent on the first day of bidding.
On the stock-specific front, Cipla, Tata Steel and L&T were among the losers for the day, shedding 1.4 per cent to 1.6 per cent each on the BSE. The financial stocks also saw selling pressure, with ICICI Bank, SBI, HDFC Bank and HDFC shedding around 1 per cent each. On the other hand, Asian Paints, Dr Reddy's Labs, HCL Technologies, HUL and TCS gained 1 per cent to 4 per cent each on the BSE.
The overall market breadth was neutral, with 1,466 advancing shares as against 1,497 declines, on the BSE.
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