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Market benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty ended with modest gains on April 20 after falling in the last three days, helped by fag-end buying in energy, telecom and utility stocks.
Traders said, “Investors remained cautious amid fresh foreign fund inflows and prevailing risk-off sentiments.”
In highly volatile trade, the 30-share BSE Sensex advanced 64.55 points, or 0.11%, to close at 59,632.35. It touched a high of 59,836.79 and a low of 59,489.98 in the day’s trade. The broader NSE Nifty ended 5.70 points or 0.03% higher at 17,624.45.
Among Sensex firms, Asian Paints, NTPC, Tata Motors, Bharti Airtel, State Bank of India, Larsen & Toubro, Wipro, Tech Mahindra, Tata Consultancy Services, ITC, HDFC Bank and Maruti were the biggest winners.
Hindustan Unilever, Infosys, UltraTech Cement, Bajaj Finance, Nestle, Axis Bank, Reliance Industries and HDFC were among the laggards.
In Asian markets, Japan and Hong Kong closed in the positive zone, while Seoul and Shanghai ended with losses. European markets were trading in the negative zone. On Wednesday, US markets mostly closed with losses.
“The current fourth quarter earnings is the focus area of the market. It has a negative bias due to lower-than-anticipated results announced, especially in the IT sector. Global markets remained unsupported due to the expectation of another rate hike and mixed US release earnings
Vinod Nair, head of research, Geojit Financial Services, said, “Withdrawals by FIIs during the week influenced the market trend in view of the cautious global sentiment.”
On Wednesday, the BSE Sensex fell 159.21 points or 0.27% to close at 59,567.80, falling for the third day. The Nifty closed 41.40 points, or 0.23%, down at 17,618.75.
Meanwhile, global oil benchmark Brent crude fell 1.89% to $81.55 per barrel. Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) offloaded equities worth Rs 13.17 crore on Wednesday, according to exchange data.