Sensex, Nifty End Flat; Telecom Shares Surge On Raising Tariffs

The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 indexes ended on a flat note on Monday as gains in telecom and energy shares were offset with losses in auto, consumer durables and banking heavyweights. The benchmarks opened higher but gave up gains to trade flat with a negative bias. The Sensex switched direction at least 10 times before closing on a flat note. During the session, Sensex moved in a range of over 350 points and Nifty touched high of 12,137.15 and low of 12,023.70.

The Sensex ended 8 points higher at 40,802 and Nifty closed 8 points lower at 12,048.

Fifteen of 19 sector gauges compiled by BEE ended lower led by the S&P BSE Auto index's nearly 1 per cent decline.

Consumer Durables, Healthcare, Consumer Discretionary Goods & Services, Realty and IT shares also witnessed selling pressure.

On the other hand, S&P BSE Telecom index rose 2.64 per cent after telecom companies hiked mobile and data tariffs.

Yes Bank was top loser in the Nifty 50 basket of shares, the stock fell 6.59 per cent to close at Rs 63.80 after the company signed off on the capital increase, which is higher than the previous figure of $1.2 billion, at a meeting on Friday.

Investors including Canada's Erwin Singh Braich, SPGP Holdings and Citax Holdings Ltd. "individually expressed their agreement/willingness to subscribe to equity shares," according to a stock exchange filing.

Eicher Motors, Bharti Infratel, Bajaj Finance, ONGC, Sun Pharma, Bharat Petroleum, Tech Mahindra and Indian Oil were also among the losers.

On the flipside, Bharti Airtel, was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose 4 per cent to Rs 460.30.

JSW Steel, Reliance Industries, Grasim Industries, Asian Paints, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Axis Bank were also among the gainers.

The overall market breadth was negative as 1,503 shares ended lower while 1,050 closed higher on the BSE.