Sensex, Nifty Trade On A Flat Note Flat; IT Stocks Gain, Banks Fall

The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 indexes were trading on a flat note in afternoon trading on Friday as gains in information technology, FMCG and real estate shares were offset with losses in banking, financial services, oil & gas and pharma shares. For most part of the day, equity benchmarks traded in a range bound manner with a flat bias. The Sensex moved in a band of 267 points and Nifty touched an intraday high of 11,493.50 and low of 11,419.90.

As of 2:37 pm, the Sensex was down 53 points at 38,786 and Nifty slipped 8 points to 11,441.

Investors are on sidelines as they assess talks between India and China to de-escalate border tensions, analysts said.

Seven of 11 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading lower led by the Nifty Bank index's nearly 1 per cent fall. PSU banking, media, pharma, metal and oil & gas shares were also witnessing selling.

On the other hand, information technology stocks were witnessing buying interest. The Nifty IT index was top sectoral gainer, up 1.5 per cent. Auto shares were largely flat despite the passenger vehicle sales rising 14.16 per cent in August compared with the corresponding period a year ago, industry body Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) said on Friday.

Mid- and small-cap shares were also trading largely on a flat note as Nifty Midcap 100 index rose 0.3 per cent while Nifty Smallcap 100 index was trading on a flat note.

Wipro was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose 4 per cent to close at Rs 295. Tech Mahindra, Tata Consultancy Services, Bharti Infratel, Hero MotoCorp, Hindustan Unilever, Britannia Industries, UPL, Bajaj Finance and Titan also rose between 1-2 per cent.

On the flipside, Zee Entertainment, IndusInd Bank, Coal India, HDFC Bank, Power Grid, Bharti Airtel, Axis Bank, Indian Oil, ONGC, Sun Pharma and HDFC were among the losers.

The overall market breadth was neutral as 1,318 shares were advancing while 1,303 were declining on the BSE.