SENSEX, NIFTY50 end lower dragged down by losses in Reliance Industries, Infosys

The Indian equity benchmarks erased morning gains and ended lower on Thursday, May 21, dragged down by losses in index heavyweights like Reliance Industries, Infosys, Bharti Airtel, Bajaj Finance, Hindustan Unilever and Kotak Mahindra Bank.

The SENSEX fell as much as 949 points from the day's highest level and NIFTY50 index touched an intraday low of 23,596 after hitting an intraday high of 23,860.

The SENSEX ended 135 points lower at 75,183 and NIFTY50 index declined 4 points to 23,655.

Asian markets ended on a mixed note despite crude declining following comments from US President Donald Trump that US is in the "final stages" with Iran, signalling that energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz will resume soon.

Japan's Nikkei advanced 3.1% and South Korea's KOSPI surged 8.4% helped by strong buying of technology shares such as Samsung Electronics, which gained 6.3%. Shares in SK Hynix, a computer chipmaker partnering with Nvidia, surged 9.5%

On the other hand, China's Shanghai Composite index fell 2% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng declined 1%.

Back home, nine of 15 major sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange (NSE) ended higher led by the NIFTY Realty index's 1% gain. NIFTY Metal, Pharma, Auto, Consumer Durables and PSU Bank indices also rose between 0.2% and 0.4%.

On the flip side, bank, financial services and FMCG shares faced a mild selling pressure.

Broader markets ended on a mixed note as NIFTY Midcap 100 index ended on a flat note and NIFTY Smallcap 100 index gained 0.63%.

Among the individual shares, Protean eGov Technologies Ltd, which is engaged in developing citizen-centric and population-scale e-governance solutions, hit their upper-circuit level on Thursday, May 21, after reporting the latest set of numbers for the fourth quarter of the financial year 2025-26.

The stock advanced 20% to ₹654.20 apiece on the National Stock Exchange (NSE).

The company posted a 48.92% increase in its consolidated profit after tax to ₹30.38 crore in the January-March quarter of FY26, compared to ₹20.40 crore a year back.

Shares of Domino's Pizza chain operator in India, Jubilant FoodWorks, fell as much as 8.04% to hit an intraday low of ₹434.65.

Jubilant FoodWorks shares came under selling pressure after the company in a letter to its shareholders said that same store sales growth also known as like for like (LFL) growth for Domino's in financial year 2026 declined to 6.5% from 7.5% in the previous financial year.

Grasim Industries was top gainer in the NIFTY50 index, the stock rose 6.43% to settle at ₹3,162 after the Aditya Birla Group’s flagship firm posted a consolidated net profit rise of nearly 31% year-on-year in the March quarter on healthy revenue growth. The NSE filings showed that the company’s consolidated net profits (attributable to owners) rose 31% YoY to ₹1,957 crore in the fourth quarter, compared with ₹1,496 crore in the same period a year earlier.

IndiGo, Apollo Hospitals, Bajaj Auto, Trent, Bharat Electronics, HDFC Life and Max Healthcare were also among the top gainers in the NIFTY50 index.

On the flip side, Bajaj Finance, Hindustan Unilever, Tech Mahindra, Infosys, Bajaj Finserv, Tata Consumer Products and Bharti Airtel were top losers in the NIFTY50 index.

The overall market breadth was positive as 1,910 shares ended higher while 1,374 closed lower on the NSE.