SENSEX, NIFTY50 trade on a subdued note; Infosys, Reliance, TCS among top drags

The Indian equity benchmarks were trading on a subdued note on Thursday, June 18, taking cues from weak closing of US markets overnight. The SENSEX fell as much as 111 points and NIFTY50 index touched an intraday low of 24,058 dragged down by weakness in heavyweights like Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Reliance Industries, Bajaj Finance, Bharti Airtel and HCL Technologies. However, the losses were capped owing to buying in HDFC Bank, Larsen & Toubro, State Bank of India and ICICI Bank

As of 9:25 am, the SENSEX was down 28 points at 77,127 and NIFTY50 index was up 2 points at 24,089.

Asian markets were trading on a mixed note taking cues from weak closing of US markets as investors dumped stocks on expectations of a rate hike to contain inflation going ahead.

Japan's Nikkei rose 1.72%, China's Shanghai Composite declined 0.11%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng slipped 0.1.45% and South Korea's KOSPI rose 0.6%.

Overnight, US stocks ended sharply lower on Wednesday after US Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged in range of 3.5% to 3.75%. Market participants anticipated rate hikes going ahead to contain inflation as higher energy prices pushed inflation above 4%.

Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.98%, S&P 500 index declined 1.21% and tech heavy Nasdaq dropped 1.34%.

Back home, all the major sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange (NSE), barring the measure of IT shares, were trading higher led by the NIFTY Pharma index's 0.54% gain. NIFTY Metal, PSU Bank, Private Bank, Realty, Consumer Durables, Healthcare, Realty and Bank indices also rose between 0.2% and 0.5%.

Broader markets were trading in-line with their larger peers as NIFTY Midcap 100 index advanced 0.14% and NIFTY Smallcap 100 index advanced 0.43%.

Among the individual shares, New India Assurance surged over 10% after reports suggested that the state-run insurer will offload shares in the upcoming NSE IPO.

Max Healthcare was top gainer in the NIFTY50 index, the stock rose 1.5% to ₹1,042. HDFC Life, Trent, SBI Life, Bharat Electronics, HDFC Bank, Tata Motors PV, Cipla and ONGC also rose between 0.4% and 1.2%.

On the flip side, Infosys, Tech Mahindra, HCL Tech, TCS, Wipro, Reliance Industries, Bajaj Finance and Grasim Industries were top losers in the NIFTY50 index.

The overall market breadth was positive as 1,764 shares were advancing while 1,000 were declining on the NSE.