Share Market Today: Indices End Nearly Flat, Sensex Ends Below 79,500

On the Sensex platform, PowerGrid, HCL Tech, Infosys, Tech M, and TCS dominated in green. On the flip side, Asian Paints, Tata Steel, Bajaj Finance, M&M, and JSW Steel emerged among the laggards

Share Market Today: The two key equity benchmark indices, Sensex and Nifty, on Monday settled nearly flat after exhibiting major volatility during the day. The BSE Sensex settled about 10 points down at 79,496.15, while the Nifty50 closed the session nearly 7 points lower at 24,141.30. This was attributed to consistent selling from the FIIs, underwhelming quarterly earnings, and muted trends in the Asian market.

Stock Update

On the 30-share Sensex platform, PowerGrid, HCL Tech, Infosys, Tech M, and TCS dominated in green. On the flip side, Asian Paints, Tata Steel, Bajaj Finance, M&M, and JSW Steel emerged among the laggards for the day.

India (VIX), the fear index that measures the volatility in the markets, ended lower by 1.38 per cent.

In the broader markets, the Nifty Microcap250 clocked major losses and slipped 1.39 per cent by the end of the session. Meanwhile, the Nifty Next50 and Nifty 100 remained the only indices at green at 0.29 per cent and 0.04 per cent respectively.

Sectoral update

The Nifty Healthcare Index settled the session in red and declined 1.50 per cent, followed by Midsmall Healthcare and Media indices which fell 1.45 per cent and 1.30 per cent respectively. On the other hand, the IT index dominated in green and ended 1.28 per cent higher.

In the last trading session on Friday, the Sensex dipped 55.47 points or 0.07 per cent to close at 79,486.32, while the Nifty declined a little over 50 points to settle at 24,148.20.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) offloaded equities worth Rs 3,404.04 crore on Friday, according to exchange data.

Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Financial Services, noted, "The risk of further downgrades in Nifty earnings casts clouds over investor sentiment, while the IT sector continued to outperform due to the strong US dollar and in anticipation of a revamp in US IT spending. India is also looking forward to the CPI data with a muted view as food prices are likely to be higher on MoM basis, essentially forging RBI to hold the interest rates in the short term."