Mumbai: The Indian equity benchmarks staged a strong recovery from intraday low levels to close on a flat note on Wednesday. The benchmarks fell soon after opening higher wherein the 30-share Sensex fell as much as 592 points from the day’s highest level and Nifty 50 index touched an intraday low of 16,162 after hitting high of 16,338.75. However, buying interest in metal shares like Hindalco, Vedanta, Tata Steel and index heavyweight Reliance Industries helped benchmarks recover from intraday low levels.
The Sensex fell 29 points to close at 54,526 and Nifty 50 index ended 2 points higher at 16,282.
“Nifty traded in a small range and reversed from support level of 16,200. Technical indicators suggest a volatile movement in the market going ahead. Traders are advised to refrain from building new buying positions until further improvement is seen in the market breadth,” Ashis Biswas, Head of Technical Research at CapitalVia Global Research said.
Eleven of fifteen sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange ended lower led by the Nifty Pharma index’s 1.2 per cent decline. Nifty Private Bank, Healthcare, Bank and Financial Services indices also ended with a neagtive bias.
On the other hand, Metal shares witnessed strong buying interest as the Nifty Metal index surged 3 per cent. Oil & Gas, PSU Bank and Realty shares also witnessed buying interest.
Mid- and small-cap shares ended mixed as Nifty Midcap 100 index ended flat while Nifty Smallcap 100 index fell nearly 1 per cent.
Among the individual shares Zomato surged 9 per cent to close at ₹ 135.80 after its revenue grew 26 per cent sequentially to ₹ 1,160 crore. Revenue growth was largely on the back of growth in our core food delivery business which continued to grow despite the severe COVID wave starting April, Zomato said.
Tata Steel was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose 4 per cent to close at record high of ₹ 1,428. JSW Steel, Indian Oil, NTPC, Hindalco, Power Grid, ONGC and Bharat Petroleum were also among the gainers.
On the flipside, Shree Cements, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Sun Pharma, Bajaj Auto, ICICI Bank, Tata Consumer Products, Divi’s Labs, HDFC Bank and Mahindra & Mahindra were among the losers.
The overall market breadth was negative as 2,142 shares ended lower while 1,063 shares ended higher on the BSE.
(Agencies Inputs)