SENSEX, NIFTY edge lower dragged down by L&T, Reliance Industries; Small-cap shares outperform

The Indian equity benchmarks gave up initial gains and turned negative on Tuesday, January 13, dragged down by losses in Larsen & Toubro, Reliance Industries, Bharti Airtel and Mahindra & Mahindra. However, the downside was capped owing to buying interest in HDFC Bank, Eternal, State Bank of India and Tech Mahindra. The SENSEX fell as much as 570 points from the day's highest level and NIFTY50 index touched an intraday low of 25,725 after hitting an intraday high of 25,900.

As of 9:38 am, the SENSEX fell 191 points to 83,686 and NIFTY50 index declined 58 points to 25,730.

Meanwhile, most of the Asian markets were trading sharply higher with Japan's Nikkei rising 3.5% aided by a weak yen and talk of fiscal stimulus. South Korea's KOSPI advanced 0.43% to an all-time high of 4,681.58. China's Shanghai Composite gained 0.1% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng jumped 1.1%.

Sectoral landscape

Eight of 15 major sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange (NSE) were trading lower led by NIFTY Pharma index's 0.9% fall. NIFTY Realty, Healthcare, Consumer Durables, Oil & Gas, IT, FMCG and Auto indices also fell between 0.2%-0.9%.

On the flipside, NIFTY Bank, Financial Services, Media, Metal and PSU Bank indices were trading with a positive bias.

Broader markets were trading mixed as NIFTY Midcap 100 index declined 0.46% while NIFTY Smallcap 100 index advanced 0.2%.

NIFT50 gainers and losers

Larsen & Toubro was top loser in the NIFTY50 index, the stock fell 1.9% to ₹3,941. HCL Technologies, Reliance Industries, Dr Reddy's Labs, Cipla, Trent, Bharti Airtel, Tata Motors PV and Mahindra & Mahindra also declined between 0.85%-1.5%.

On the other hand, Eternal, ONGC, Hindalco, State Bank of India, Tech Mahindra, HDFC Bank and Eicher Motors were among the top gainers in the NIFTY50 index.

The overall market breadth was positive as 2,055 shares were advancing while 1,191 were declining on the BSE.