Sensex Sheds Over 300 Points, Nifty Settles Below 15,700, Dragged By Reliance Industries, Financial Stocks

The benchmark indices ended the day with losses of a little over half a per cent, amid heightened volatililty, due to profit-booking at higher levels. The BSE Sensex ended at 51,941.64, lower by 333.93 points or 0.64 per cent and the NSE Nifty settled at 15,635.35, down 104.75 points or 0.67 per cent. In the broader markets, the S&P BSE MidCap and SmallCap indices ended with cuts of 0.7 per cent andd 0.9 per cent respectively.

The markets had started with mild gains and moved in a narrow range throughout the morning. However, the advent of profit-booking dragged the markets lower in the afternoon session.

On the stock-specific front, Reliance Industries shed 1.6 per cent to Rs 2179 to top the loser’s list on the BSE. Financial stocks also had a weak session, with Bajaj Finserv, IndusInd Bank, Bajaj Finance, Axis Bank and SBI losing around a per cent each on the BSE.

On the other hand, NTPC, PowerGrid, Titan and Asian Paints bucked the weakness to gain up to 4 per cent each on the BSE.

Among stocks in the news, Vedanta lost 1.2 per cent to Rs 265.55 on the BSE a day after the Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal permitted Twin Star Technologies, a part of Anil Agarwal’s Vedanta Group, to take over Videocon Industries. 

And Max Financial Services shed 1.6 per cent to Rs 997.45 on the BSE after the company reported a net profit of Rs 70 crore in the January-March quarter from Rs 6.7 crore in the year-ago period on the back of higher investment income and lower tax expenses.

The BSE market breadth was weak. Out of 3,340 stocks traded on the BSE, there were 1,735 declining stocks as against are 1,452 advances.