SENSEX, NIFTY50 rangebound; Reliance Industries, Adani Total Gas, ITC among buzzing shares

The Indian equity benchmarks were trading in a narrow range in noon deals on the first day of 2026 as gains in Infosys, Reliance Industries, Larsen & Toubro, Eternal, Mahindra & Mahindra were offset with losses in ITC, ICICI Bank, Bajaj Finance, Bharat Electronics and HDFC Bank. The SENSEX was trading in a range of 333 points and NIFTY50 index touched an intraday high of 26,198 and a low of 26,113.

As of 12:37 pm, SENSEX was down 5 points at 85,215 and NIFTY50 index was up 5 points at 26,134.

Blue Dart post market hours on Wednesday, December 31, informed exchanges that the adjudicating authority in its show cause notice on December 30 substantially dropped the GST demand from ₹420.78 crore to ₹64.98 lakh along with interest of ₹41.71 lakh and a penalty of ₹6.49 lakh.

Trading volume on the BSE spiked by 11.33 times to 7.9 lakh shares compared with an average of 70,000 shares traded daily in the past two weeks.

Shares of Godfrey Phillips declined as much as 15.45% to the low of ₹2,335.30 apiece on the NSE while ITC tumbled as much as 9.4% to the low of ₹365.10 on the NSE.

VST Industries was trading over 3% lower at ₹249.40 on the NSE.

Shares of the company were under pressure as investors fear that the additional levy will lead to a significant increase in tobacco product prices, thereby adversely affecting related companies.

The new levies on tobacco and pan masala will be in addition to the GST rate and will replace the compensation cess currently levied on these sin goods.

From February 1, pan masala, cigarettes, tobacco, and similar products will attract a GST rate of 40%, while biris will attract 18% Goods and Services Tax (GST), according to a government notification.

Under the revised agreement, Vodafone Group promoters will release ₹2,307 crore over the next 12 months for Vodafone Idea as per the terms agreed in the amendment agreement.

Vodafone Group has also set aside its 328 crore shares held in Vi for Vi's benefit.

In the last five trading sessions, the stock has risen 1.2%, while in the last six months, the shares have surged more than 3%. On a year-on-year basis, RIL shares have soared over 29%.

The Mukesh Ambani-led firm has a market capitalisation of ₹21.35 lakh crore.

This week, on December 30, Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani unveiled a draft Reliance AI Manifesto, outlining an ambitious plan to transform the conglomerate into an AI-native deep-tech enterprise while driving a tenfold improvement in productivity for over 6 lakh employees and a 10x impact on India's economy and society.

According to the exchange filing, the company sanctioned loans worth ₹40,100 crore during the third quarter, a 29% increase compared to ₹31,087 crore in loans sanctioned in the same quarter last year.

Meanwhile, loan disbursements rose by 44% YoY to ₹24,903 crore as of December 31, 2025. Meanwhile, the company’s outstanding loan book stood at ₹87,975 crore, a rise of 28% compared to the ₹68,960 crore loan book in the same quarter of FY25.