Sensex, Nifty Off Day's Highs As Auto, Oil & Gas Shares Decline

The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 Indexes came off intraday highs as auto, oil & gas and metal shares came under selling pressure. The benchmarks opened on a positive note with the Sensex rising as much as 369 points and the Nifty 50 Index hitting an intraday high of 11,147. Weakness in heavyweights like HDFC Bank, State Bank of India, Power Grid and Mahindra & Mahindra were dragging the benchmark indexes from intraday highs. While, buying interest in Reliance Industries, HDFC and ICICI Bank were helping them sustain in the positive territory.

As of 2:40 pm, the Sensex traded 75 points or 0.2 per cent higher at 37,425 and the NSE Nifty 50 Index rose 0.18 per cent or 20 points to 11,068.

Thirteen of 19 sector gauges compiled by BSE were trading higher led by the S&P Consumer Durables Index's 1.3 per cent gain.

On the other hand, S&P BSE Oil & Gas and Auto Indexes were among to losers down over 0.5 per cent each.

Mid- and small-cap shares also came off intraday highs as the S&P BSE MidCap Index turned flat while S&P BSE SmallCap Index rose 0.3 per cent.

Bharti Infratel, Sun Pharma, Tech Mahindra, Axis Bank and Larsen & Toubro were among the gainers in Nifty 50 basket of shares.

On the flipside, Yes Bank, Grasim Industries, UPL, GAIL India and Mahindra & Mahindra were among the laggards.

The overall market breadth was neutral as 1,203 shares were declining while 1,188 were advancing on the BSE.