Sensex, Nifty Take A Breather After Seven-Day Upmove

Domestic equity benchmarks (Sensex and Nifty) took a breather after a seven-day upmove. In today's session, gains in HDFC Bank, Infosys, HDFC, Larsen & Toubro and Sun Pharma were offset by losses in Hindustan Petroleum, Bharat Petroleum, Indian Oil, Zee Entertainment, ONGC and Tata Steel. Weekly expiry of futures and options contracts for Nifty and Nifty Bank led to lacklustre trading session today, analysts said. Meanwhile, Indian equity and debt markets will remain shut tomorrow on account of Holi festival.

The S&P BSE Sensex rose 0.06 per cent or 23 points to close at 38,387 while the NSE Nifty 50 Index declined 0.1 per cent or 11 points to settle at 11,521.

Eleven of 19 sector gauges compiled by BSE ended lower led by the S&P BSE Oil & Gas Index's 2.3 per cent decline. Power, metal, auto and utilities indexes also declined between and 1 and 2 per cent each. On the flipside, S&P BSE Realty Index was top gainer, up 2.2 per cent.

Mid- and small-cap shares underperformed their larger peers as the S&P BSE MidCap and S&P BSE SmallCap Indexes declined 0.3 per cent each.

Hindustan Petroleum was top loser in the Nifty 50 basket of shares, the stock declined 5.52 per cent to settle at Rs 274.70. Zee Entertainment, Bharat Petroleum, NTPC, ONGC, Indian Oil and Tata Steel were also among the losers. On the other hand, Indiabulls Housing Finance was top gainer, up 5 per cent to close at Rs 733. Hindalco, Infosys, Dr. Reddy's Labs, Larsen & Toubro, Wipro and Yes Bank were also among the gainers.

The overall market breadth was negative as 1,559 shares declined while 1,114 advanced on the BSE.