Markets at mid-day: Nifty over 150 points down from fresh highs; heavyweights drag
Nifty after hitting a fresh high in intra-day trade led by buoyancy in the IT pack fell in the mid-afternoon trade amid profit booking.
After hitting fresh record highs on the Nifty50 index led by sharp gains in the IT pack, Indian equities traded lower dragged by heavyweights including HUL and Reliance Industries. The 30-share BSE Sensex traded lower by 0.53 per cent or 407.95 points at 77,070.98, while the Nifty traded lower by 0.41 per cent or 96.9 points at 23,470.1 Meanwhile, broader markets outperformed their headline peers with Nifty Midcap 100 index up nearly 0.4 per cent at the last count.
Within the Nifty 50 pack, Bharti Airtel, LTIMindtree, Hindalco, Infosys and TCS were the top gainers, while laggards included stocks like HUL, BPCL, Adani Enterprises, Bajaj Finance and Tata Steel.
Sectorally, in a mixed session, banks, financial services, FMCG, realty and oil & gas stocks traded in the red with a drag of up to 0.8 per cent, while buying action was seen across all other sectors, with consumer durables and IT stocks leading the gains.
"The market is in a consolidation phase, and this is likely to continue. There are no major triggers for aggressive buying or selling. Even in this consolidation phase the undertone of the market is bullish and, therefore, buying on dips will emerge imparting resilience to the market. Strong up moves will attract profit booking and, therefore, sustained rally would be difficult,” notes Dr. V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Financial Services.
FIIs have been net buyers of Rs. 10,893 crore this week, while on a monthly basis they have net sold Indian equities worth Rs 794.53 crore as per the provisional data.
IT stocks in trade today gained heftly after Accenture released its Q3FY24 earnings. After being in the green during early trading hours, 3 IT stocks from the broader Nifty IT pack, including HCL Tech, Wirpo and Tech Mahindra traded with minor cuts.
Hindustan Zinc shares rose up to 6 per cent after the company inked a deal with the US-based company for exploring the battery storage space, supporting the ongoing global energy transition.
RailTel Corporation shares rallied up to 13 per cent on the back strong volumes in the counter.
Meanwhile, European markets traded lower, with German DAX and French CAC indices trading with losses of up to 0.42 per cent.
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