Sensex, Nifty End Mildly Lower Amid Choppiness; HCL Tech, Tech Mahindra Top Losers

The benchmark indices ended marginally lower, after opening at fresh all-time highs, due to mild profit-booking at higher levels triggered by selling pressure in information technology and select financial shares. The BSE Sensex ended at 53,140.06, lower by 18.79 points or 0.04 per cent and the NSE Nifty closed at 15,923.40, down 0.80 points or 0.01 per cent. The broader markets however outperformed the largecap peers, with the BSE Midcap index and BSE Smallcap index gaining 0.5 per cent and 0.4 per cent respectively.

In the currency market, the rupee has inched higher by 3 paise to 74.51 against the dollar. At the interbank foreign exchange, the domestic unit opened at 74.53 against the dollar and then inched higher to 74.51.

Meanwhile, the Zomato IPO has been subscribed 33.45 times thus far. The IPO received bids for 7.19 times in the retail category, 46.25 times in the QIB segment and 26.45 times in the non-institutional category. The IPO closes at 5 pm today.

On the stock-specific front, information technology stocks witnessed profit-booking post recent gains with HCL Tech, Tech Mahindra and Infosys shedding 1-3 per cent each on the BSE. In the financial space, ICICI Bank, IndusInd Bank and Axis Bank shed around a per cent each on the BSE.

On the other hand, Bharti Airtel, Tata Steel, Reliance Industries and Ultratech bucked the sluggish trend to register gains of a per cent each on the BSE.

And Wipro rebounded from day's lows to end higher by 0.32 per cent at Rs 577.75 after the country's leading software services company reported its best-ever quarterly earnings in the first quarter of the current financial year. Wipro's net profit rose 9 per cent sequentially to Rs 3,243 crore from Rs 2,972 crore in the previous quarter.

The BSE market breadth was positive. Out of 3,349 stocks traded on the BSE, there were 1786 advancing stocks as against 1413 declines.