Sensex, Nifty Fall For Third Straight Day; Yes Bank Top Loser

The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 indexes fell for third day in a row on Thursday as futures and option contracts for the month of December expired. For most part of the day, benchmarks fluctuated between gains and losses but extended declines in afternoon trading on the back of selling pressure in banking, energy and telecom shares. The Sensex fell as much as 328 points and Nifty touched an intraday low of 12,119.

The Sensex ended 298 points or 0.72 per cent lower at 41,164 and Nifty 50 index dropped 88 points or 0.72 per cent to close at 12,127.

Nine of 11 sector gauges compiled by National Stock Exchange ended lower led by the Nifty PSU Bank index's 1.5 per cent fall. Nifty Pharma, Nifty Private Bank, Nifty Bank, Nifty Financial Services, Nifty FMCG and Nifty Information Technology indexes also fell between 0.4 and 0.9 per cent each.

On the other hand, Nifty Metal index was top gainer, up 0.6 per cent.

Mid- and small-cap shares ended flat as both the Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 indexes ended little changed.

Yes Bank was top loser in the Nifty 50 basket of shares, the stock fell 4.4 per cent to Rs 49. Bharti Airtel, Reliance Industries, Sun Pharma, Adani Ports, Larsen & Toubro, HDFC Bank and GAIL India were also among the losers.

On the flipside, ONGC, Vedanta, JSW Steel, NTPC, Bajaj Finance, Tata Steel and Eicher Motors were among the gainers.

The overall market breadth was positive as 1,322 shares closed higher while 1,198 ended lower on the BSE.