Sensex, Nifty Off Day's Highs After Hitting 5-Month Highs
Nifty 50 index hit a five-month high on Tuesday Eight of 11 sector gauges compiled by NSE were trading higher Pharma and PSU banking shares were facing selling pressure
The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 indexes came off intraday highs after clocking new 5-month highs earlier in the session. Earlier in the day, Sensex rose as much as 369 points to hit 38,550.74 and Nifty touched an intraday high of 11,373.60, its highest level since March 5. However, profit-booking in pharma and PSU banking shares led to benchmarks coming off highs.
As of 12:17 pm, the Sensex was up 0.5 per cent or 203 points at 38385 and Nifty was at 11,321, up 51 points.
Nifty 50 index hit a five-month high on Tuesday as signs of a recovery in Chinese economic activity powered gains in metal stocks, with less worse-than-feared domestic earnings reports also helping sentiment amid a rise in coronavirus cases.
A jump in Chinese iron ore futures on the Dalian Commodity Exchange and data pointing at China's economy gathering pace boosted metal stocks in India, analysts said.
Eight of 11 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading higher ed by the Nifty Metal index's 2.5 per cent gain. FMCG, media and banking shares were also witnessing buying interest.
On the other hand, pharma and PSU banking shares were facing selling pressure on account of profit booking.
Mid- and small-cap shares were mixed as Nifty Midcap 100 index was trading on a flat note while Nifty Smallcap 100 index rose 0.56 per cent.
Zee Entertainment was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose 5 per cent to Rs 159. ITC, JSW Steel, Tata Steel, Hindalco, UltraTech Cement, Axis Bank, BPCL, HDFC, Hero MotoCorp and Asian Paints were also among the gainers.
On the flipside, Titan Company shares fell as much as 5.2 per cent to hit an intraday low of Rs 1,050.20 on the BSE after the company reported loss of Rs 270 crore in quarter ended June 30 as against profit of Rs 371 crore during the same quarter last year.
Shree Cements, Dr Reddy's Labs, Cipla, UPL, Tata Motors, Bharti Airtel and Grasim Industries were also among the losers.
Overall market breadth was positive as 1,052 shares were advancing while 714 were declining on the NSE.