Sensex Today: Indian benchmarks — Sensex, and Nifty50 indices — extended weakness into second day on Thursday amid selling in L&T, HDFC Bank, Bajaj Finance, ICICI Bank, Sun Pharma, and Bharti Airtel.
The frontline indices, however, ended sharply off lows aided by gains in shares of Tata Motors, ITC, Kotak Bank, TCS, SBI, Asian Paints, and Titan Company.
Overall, the BSE Sensex ended at session barely 27 points lower at 79,897 level, while the Nifty50 closed at 24,316, down 8.5 points. The BSE benchmark had hit an intraday low of 79,464 and the NSE benchmark had touched 24,194.
In the broader markets, the BSE MidCap index gained 0.34 per cent, and the BSE SmallCap advanced 0.57 per cent.
In the broader market shares of shipping firms, and individually, RVNL and YES Bank stole the limelight. Among others, Raymond today traded at an adjusted price, post de-merger of its Lifestyle unit,.
Among sectors, the Nifty Media index closed 1 per cent higher, followed by the Nifty FMCG (0.3 per cent). On the downside, the Nifty Realty fell 1.5 per cent.
Global Cues
Japan’s Nikkei surged past the 42,000 mark for the first time to achieve a new record high. Other Asian markets also rose on the back of a rally in technology stocks and optimism around potential rate cuts.
The Nikkei was up 1 per cent, while Australia’s ASX200 gained 0.87 per cent and Korea’s Kospi rose 0.77 per cent.
Meanwhile, in the US markets, stocks closed higher in anticipation of inflation and jobless claims data. The Nasdaq led gains with a rise of 1.18 per cent, followed by the Dow Jones (up 1.09 per cent) and the S&P 500 (up 1.02 per cent).
