Sensex ends choppy day 25 pts lower; midcaps skid; M&M up 6%, HDFC down 2%

Wednesday,   13-Jan-2021   04:11 PM (IST)

Buying in select banking and automobile stocks helped markets pare steep losses, logged earlier today, and flat on Wednesday. Investors turned to profit-booking, after benchmarks scaled fresh lifetime highs in the morning deals, and dragged the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex lower by 731 points from record peak of 49,795 levels. The Nifty50 slipped 217 points from new peak of 14,653. At close, the S&P BSE Sensex was at 49,492 levels, down 25 points or 0.05 per cent. Individually, M&M jumped nearly 6 per cent on the BSE today and re-entered the Rs 1-trillion m-cap club. At close, its market cap stood at Rs 1.02 trillion on the BSE. That apart, SBI surged 4.5 per cent, ITC (2.4 per cent) and Bharti Airtel (2 per cent), to end the day as top gainers on the Sensex. Losses in Bajaj Finance (3 per cent), HDFC (2.6 per cent), Reliance Industries (1 per cent), and HDFC Bank (0.5 per cent) put pressure on markets. On NSE, the Nifty held the 14,550-mark and closed at 14,565 level, up 1.4 points or 0.1 per cent. Sectorally, Nifty Pharma ended 1 per cent lower. On the upside, Nifty PSU index surged 3.3 per cent and ended as an outperformer for second straight day. In the broader market, the S&P BSE MidCap ended 0.6 per cent lower at 19,087.59 while the S&P BSE SmallCap index slipped 0.4 per cent at 18,850.66.