SENSEX falls 183 points, NIFTY50 ends below 24,250 dragged down Bharti Airtel, Reliance

The Indian equity benchmarks erased intraday gains and ended lower on Wednesday, August 26, as investors resorted to profit booking after yesterday's sharp up move.

The SENSEX fell as much as 514 points from the day's highest level and NIFTY50 index touched an intraday low of 24,207 dragged down by heavyweights like Reliance Industries, Bharti Airtel, Larsen & Toubro, Infosys, Mahindra & Mahindra, NTPC and Tata Consultancy Services.

The SENSEX ended 183 points lower at 77,473 and NIFTY50 index declined 127 points to close at 24,208.

The benchmarks staged a gap up opening tracking a drop in crude prices in international markets but gave up gains in noon deals owing to profit boking.

The SENSEX rose as much as 331 points and NIFTY50 index touched an intraday high of 24,378, data from stock exchanges showed.

Seven of 15 major sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange (NSE) ended lower led by the NIFTY IT index's 1.5% fall. NIFTY FMCG, Realty, Consumer Durables, Oil & Gas, and Auto indices also fell between 0.6% and 0.9%.

On the other hand, NIFTY Bank, Private Bank, PSU Bank, Metal and Financial Services indices rose between 0.5% and 1%.

Broader markets closed mixed as NIFTY Midcap 100 index ended on a flat note while NIFTY Smallcap 100 index closed 0.8% higher at 20,067. During the session, it touched a record high of 20,091.

Among the individual shares, Hindustan Zinc advanced as much as 6.64% to hit a high of ₹632 tracking a surge in zinc prices.

Zinc prices on Wednesday rose by 0.85% to ₹414.80 per kg in futures trade due to higher bets by market participants.

Shares of Cyient soared as much as 7.7% to hit an intraday high of ₹1,054.85 after the Competition Commission of India (CCI) on Tuesday gave approval to the global engineering services provider for its proposed acquisition of TAO Digital Solutions Inc.

The approval came after Hyderabad-based Cyient Ltd, in May this year, announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire TAO Digital Solutions Inc, an AI-native data and product engineering solutions firm headquartered in Santa Clara, California.

Hindustan Copper gained as much as 3.59% a day after the stock witnessed a sharp slide following the launch of the government’s offer for sale (OFS).

Institutional investors on Tuesday oversubscribed Hindustan Copper share sale by putting in bids worth over ₹4,600 crore.

As against the 2.61 crore shares reserved for them, institutional investors put in bids for over 8.91 crore shares, oversubscribing the issue 3.41 times. At an indicative price of ₹520.35 per share, the bids are valued at over ₹4,600 crore.

Bharti Airtel was top loser in the NIFTY50 index, the stock fell 2.31% to close at ₹1,902. Power Grid, Larsen & Toubro, Infosys, Nestle India, Shriram Finance, Tech Mahindra, Bajaj Auto, Bharat Electronics, NTPC and Wipro also fell between 1.5% and 2.14%.

On the flip side, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Axis Bank, JSW Steel, Ultratech Cement, HDFC Life, SBI Life, InterGlobe Aviation, Tata Steel, ICICI Bank, State Bank of India and Grasim Industries were top gainers in the NIFTY50 index.

The overall market breadth was positive as 1,967 shares ended higher while 1,548 closed lower on the NSE.