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Ahmedabad: Indian stock markets witnessed a cautious stance ahead of the release of US CPI data late tonight.
The Sensex closed with a marginal gain, while the Nifty closed flat on top. IT stocks rose today on expectations of lower inflation rate due to soft producer price data in the US. However, the gains in these stocks were later limited due to profit booking. Despite this, the IT index closed 1.58 per cent up. On the other hand, the Supreme Court ruled that state governments can collect royalty on minerals, which led to a decline in metal stocks, with Tata Steel, NMDC, Vedanta, Hindustan Zinc, Coal India, etc. all falling up to five per cent. Due to which the metal index fell by 1.26 per cent. Today, the decline that continued for two days ended and two major indices closed with gains. The volatility index, called the fear gauge index of the stock market, fell 4.40 percent to 15.44 today from yesterday's level of 16.17. Out of the 14 sector indices on the Nifty, only three indices closed with gains, while 11 indices declined. The Nifty Media index fell 1.06 per cent. After opening 109 points higher initially, the Sensex witnessed a rally till around 1 pm today and thereafter the index softened slightly. Meanwhile, the Sensex made an intra-day high of 79,228 and a low of 78,895. Thus, after a total fluctuation of 333 points throughout the day, the Sensex finally closed 150 points or 0.19 per cent higher at 79,105. On the other hand, the Nifty also opened 45 points higher and after making an intra-day high of 24,196 and a low of 24,099, the Nifty closed 4.75 points or 0.02 per cent higher at 24,143. Thus, the index witnessed a fluctuation of only 97 points throughout the day. As far as the broader market is concerned, midcap and smallcap stocks underperformed today. The BSE Midcap index fell 190 points or 0.41 per cent to close at 46,555, while the BSE Smallcap index fell 304 points or 0.57 per cent to close at 52,955.
However, the BSE SME IPO index, which had outperformed the key indices in the last two days, turned negative today and stocks in this segment witnessed a sell-off. The index today witnessed a total volatility of 3,007 points and ended the day lower by 2,057 points or 2.02 per cent at 99,865. Out of a total of 4,036 stocks that traded on the BSE today, 1,442 rose, 2,485 declined and 109 closed steady. 178 stocks hit a fifty-two week high today, while 66 stocks hit a fifty-two week low. Two stocks hit a lower circuit today. The combined market capitalisation of all the companies listed on the BSE today reached Rs. 444.29 lakh crore or $5.29 trillion, from yesterday's Rs. 445.30 lakh crore, a decline of Rs. 1.01 lakh crore. Out of the total 30 stocks listed on the Sensex, 15 closed with a decline while 15 closed with a gain. Top gainers were TCS up 2.30 percent, HCL Tech up 2.09 percent, Infosys up 1.44 percent, Tech Mahindra up 1.41 percent and M&M up 1.02 percent. Top losers were UltraTech Cement down 2.37 percent, JSW Steel down 1.93 percent, Tata Steel down 1.81 percent, Adani Ports down 1.48 percent and Bajaj Finserv down 0.98 percent. Out of the 50 Nifty stocks, 26 closed with a decline while 24 closed with a gain. Top gainers were TCS up 2.29 percent, HCL Tech up 1.96 percent, Tech Mahindra up 1.47 percent, Infosys up 1.25 percent and M&M up 1.16 percent. Top losers included Divis Lab 4.03 per cent, Hero Motor Corp 3.17 per cent, Coal India 3 per cent, UltraTech Cement 2.35 per cent and Dr. Reddy's Lab fell 2.14 per cent.
As against Sensex's 0.19 per cent gain, the midcap index fell 0.41 per cent while the smallcap index fell 0.57 per cent.
The BSE SME IPO index slipped 2.02 per cent to below 1 lakh mark after falling as much as 3,007 points.
Investor wealth drops by Rs 1 lakh crore, volatility index falls 4.40% to 15.44
Four of the top five gainers in both Sensex and Nifty were IT companies, with the Nifty IT index gaining 1.58 per cent.
11 out of 14 indices on Nifty fell, Metal fell by 1.26 per cent and Media by 1.06 per cent.
