Markets at mid-day trade: Sensex, Nifty retreat from record highs; smallcaps outperform

After hitting fresh highs in early trade cheering Modi’s continuation as the country’s Prime Minister for the third term, both the equity benchmarks in the mid noon session traded with minor gains as weakness in the IT stocks weighed on the sentiment. At the last count, Sensex was up by 0.1 per cent at 76,768, while Nifty traded higher by 0.21 per cent at 23,339.35. Meanwhile, Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 traded mixed with the latter showcasing a strong performance with gains of 1.5 per cent.

Within the Nifty50 pack, UltraTech Cement, Grasim Industries, Hero MotoCorp, Power Grid Corporation of India and Nestle were among the top gainers, while laggards from the basket have been Tech Mahindra, Infosys, Wipro, LTIMindtree and M&M among others. 

PSU stocks gathered steam once again in trade today after plummeting sharply last week. BSE PSU index last traded with gains of over 1 per cent, with stocks like Power Grid, SBI, NTPC, REC Ltd and LIC pulling the index higher.

Bharti Airtel shares also logged their fresh 52-week high price in trade today after CLSA retained its 'buy' call on the stock as it lately entered the elite club of companies with m-cap over $100 billion.

Meanwhile, the data released by the Association of Mutual Funds of India (AMFI) for May showed continued traction in equity mutual fund inflows which surged past Rs 30,000 crore levels for the first time.

The market regulator SEBI in light of the significant growth registered by the broad market parameters has issued a consultation paper on review of eligibility criteria of stock derivatives.