Market Closing: Sensex Ends 107 pts Lower, Nifty Below 19,600; PSBs shine

Sensex Today: Key benchmark indices gyrated in a narrow trading band on Tuesday, amid alternate bouts of buying and selling. Sectorally, PSU banks outperformed the market with smart gains, while select IT shares also moved higher. On the other hand, metal and FMCG stocks declined.

The S&P BSE Sensex touched a high of 66,057.53, and then fell little over 300 points to hit a low of 65,752.63. The BSE benchmark index eventually ended 107 points lower at 65,847.

The NSE Nifty 50 moved in an almost 100-point range, the index from a high of 19,634 slipped to a low of 19,533, before signing-off the day with a modest loss of 26 points at 19,571.

Among the Sensex 30 shares, Mahindra & Mahindra and JSW Steel dropped nearly 2 per cent each. Sun Pharma, Nestle, Reliance Industries and IndusInd Bank were the other prominent losers. On the other hand, Tech Mahindra gained 2 per cent. Wipro, Bajaj Finance, SBI and Bajaj Finserv were the other notable gainers.

In the broader market, the BSE MidCap and SmallCap indices bucked the trend and settled up to 0.3 per cent higher. The overall breadth was marginally positive, with 1,850 shares advancing as against 1,750 declining stocks on the BSE.

Sectorally, the Nifty PSU Bank index zoomed over 3%; Pharma and Consumer Durables were the other visible gainers. Whereas, the Nifty Metal index was down over a per cent.

Global Cues

Asian share markets were mostly weaker while the U.S. dollar higher on Tuesday as investors awaited inflation readings from China and the United States to deliver an updated outlook on the health of the global economy.MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.9% on Tuesday, after U.S. stocks ended the previous session with mild gains. The index is down 2.8% so far this month.

Tokyo stocks opened higher on Tuesday on the back of gains on Wall Street ahead of US inflation data later this week. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index was up 0.40 percent, or 130.45 points, at 32,385.01 in early trade, while the broader Topix index added 0.42 percent, or 9.63 points, to 2,293.56.

US stocks finished higher on Monday, regaining some of the ground lost last week, as investors added positions ahead of Thursday’s highly awaited U.S. inflation report.