New Delhi: Key stock indices — Sensex and Nifty — pared early losses in late morning deals on Monday following gains in Reliance Industries, HCL Tech and TCS, while FMCG, power and select banking and pharma shares witnessed selling pressure.
Sensex on Monday dipped its day’s low and touched 56,382 and Nifty came below the 17,000-mark to touch 16,782 during intra-day trade.
However, both the benchmark indices later recovered after their worst single-day plunge on Friday following the news of a new Covid variant, Omicron.
The BSE index, which, was up over 500 point at the highs of the day eventually ended with a minor gain of 154 points at 57,261 and the NSE Nifty cracked to a low of 16,782 in opening deals, and then pulled-back to a high of 17,161. The Nifty 50 finally settled at 17,054, up 28 points.
Mid- and small-cap shares underperformed their larger peers as Nifty Midcap 100 index fell 1.35 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index dropped 2.6 per cent.
Kotak Bank was the top gainer among the Sensex 30 stocks, surging 2.92 per cent at Rs 2,020. HCL Technologies, Titan, TCS, Bajaj Finserv and Bajaj Finance were the other prominent gainers. Reliance Industries ended with a gain of 1.1 per cent at Rs 2,440 on the back of 21 per cent tariff hike by its telecom arm Reliance Jio.
On the flip side, Sun Pharma, Axis Bank and NTPC slipped around 2 per cent each. PowerGrid Corporation, Nestle India, Bajaj Auto, Dr Reddy's, ITC and HDFC were the other notable losers.