Sensex, Nifty Snap Three-Day Winning Streak Dragged By Banks

The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 indexes snapped their three-day winning streak on Thursday as investor sentiment took a knock after the country reported 69,652 new Coronavirus cases, marking the biggest single-day jump. Meanwhile, heightened volatility due to weekly expiry of index future and option contracts also added to the weakness in the equity markets, analysts said. The Sensex fell as much as 459 points and Nifty briefly dropped below its important psychological level of 11,300.

The Sensex ended 394 points or 1 per cent lower at 38,220 and Nifty 50 index fell 96 points or 0.84 per cent to close at 11,312.

India's coronavirus count has risen to 28,36,926 with 69,652 new cases in the last 24 hours. The fresh cases marked the biggest one-day jump in the country so far, data from the Union Health Ministry showed.

Selling pressure was visible across the sectors as seven of 11 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange ended lower led by Nifty Bank index's over 1 per cent fall. Financial services, auto, private bank and state-run lenders also faced selling pressure.

On the other hand, power shares witnessed buying interest after government on Wednesday approved a proposal to give one-time relaxation in working capital limit norm for power distribution companies (discoms) under the Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana (UDAY) to get loans as part of the Rs 90,000 crore liquidity infusion scheme.

Mid- and small-cap shares outperformed their larger peers as Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 indexes rose over 0.5 per cent each.

Among the individual shares, NHPC rallied 13 per cent, Tata Power advanced 9 per cent, NTPC gained 7 per cent, Adani Transmission climbed 7 per cent, Torrent Power was up 4 per cent, CESC rose 4 per cent, Adani Power advanced 4 per cent and Power Grid gained 2.3 per cent.

Axis Bank was top Nifty loser, the stock fell 2 per cent to close at Rs 435. Mahindra & Mahindra, Bharti Airtel, HDFC Life, Wipro, Titan, IndusInd Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Larsen & Toubro, State Bank of India and Reliance Industries were also among the losers.

On the flipside, NTPC was top Nifty gainer, the stock ended 6 per cent higher at Rs 100. ONGC, BPCL, Power Grid, Coal India, Indian Oil and Zee Entertainment were among the gainers.