Sensex, Nifty Off Day's Highs; IT Stocks Gain, State-Run Lenders Fall

The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 indexes came off intraday highs in the afternoon trading as PSU banking, metal and FMCG shares came under selling pressure on account of profit booking. The benchmarks on Tuesday were on track to gain for third session in a row.

As of 2:10 pm, the Sensex was up 0.2 per cent or 93 points at 40,524 and Nifty rose 17 points to 11,890.

COVID-19 cases in India are decreasing after a peak in mid-September, with the world's second-worst affected country reporting a near three-month low of 46,790 new infections in the last 24 hours.

"Declines in daily COVID-19 cases and deaths has given some comfort that there could be further relaxations to the economy," said Siddharth Purohit, an analyst at SMC Institutional Equities told news agency Reuters.

Six of 11 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading higher led by the Nifty Media index's 1.4 per cent gain. Information technology, auto and pharma shares were also witnessing buying interest.

On the flipside, Nifty Bank, PSU Bank, Private Bank, Metal and FMCG indexes were trading with a negative bias.

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

HCL Technologies was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose 4 per cent to Rs 880. Tech Mahindra, Larsen & Toubro, HDFC Bank, TCS, Asian Paints, JSW Steel, Wipro and Infosys also rose between 1-3 per cent.

On the flipside, Britannia Industries fell 5 per cent to Rs 3,566 after it reported September quarter earnings. ONGC, Indian Oil, Hindalco, UPL, Power Grid, NTPC, GAIL India, BPCL and Coal India were among the losers.

The overall market breadth was neutral as 1,342 shares were declining while 1,210 were advancing on the BSE.