Delhi, 24 April (H.S.): The rally in the domestic stock market, which persisted for seven trading days, faced a setback today. The session began with a decline, but both the Sensex and Nifty indices briefly recovered due to buying support before falling back into the red due to selling pressure.
At the close, the Sensex was down 0.39% and Nifty down 0.34%. Continuous selling in sectors such as real estate, FMCG, and IT contributed to the decline, along with lower performances in banking, automobile, capital goods, consumer durables, oil and gas, and tech indices.
Conversely, the pharmaceutical and metal sectors saw consistent buying. The broader market was similarly affected, with the BSE Midcap index down 0.16% and the Smallcap index down 0.01%. This market weakness led to a significant decrease in investor wealth, with a loss of over ₹80,000 crore, reducing the BSE’s market capitalization from ₹430.47 lakh crore to ₹429.63 lakh crore.
Overall, 4,086 shares were traded on the BSE, with 1,922 gaining and 2,013 losing. Among the Sensex’s 30 stocks, 13 gained and 17 lost, while in the Nifty’s 50, 20 gained and 30 lost.
The BSE Sensex opened lower today, down by 58.06 points at 80,058.43. It briefly recovered to 80,173.92 due to buying support but soon faced profit booking, leading to a significant drop. By 3 PM, the index had decreased by 391.94 points to 79,724.55.
However, last-minute buying helped it recover 75 points, closing at 79,801.43, down 315.06 points. Similarly, the NSE Nifty opened with a decline of 51.05 points at 24,277.90. It saw a slight increase to 24,347.85 with early buying but faltered as profit booking set in. An hour before closing, it dropped by 112.80 points to 24,216.15, but ended with a minor recovery, closing at 24,246.70, down 82.25 points.
Among major stocks, the top 5 gainers included IndusInd Bank (3.22%), Ultratech Cement (1.76%), Grasim Industries (1.62%), Tata Motors (1.28%), and Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories (1.22%). Conversely, the top 5 losers were Hindustan Unilever (-4.06%), Bharti Airtel (-1.91%), Eicher Motors (-1.56%), ICICI Bank (-1.52%), and Eternal (-1.20%).
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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar
