Benchmark indices snapped two-day gains and ended lower on Wednesday amid selling seen in the banking, metal and IT names.

At close, the Sensex was down 426.85 points or 0.53% at 79,942.18, and the Nifty was down 126 points or 0.51% at 24,340.85.

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On Nifty50, Cipla led the decline with a drop of 4 per cent, followed by Shriram Finance, SBI Life Insurance, Trent, HDFC Life Insurance, and Infosys, which all lost up to 2 per cent.

Adani Enterprises finished the session with a gain of 4.2 per cent, while Tata Consumer Products, Hero MotoCorp, and Britannia Industries each wrapped up the session with gains of up to 2 per cent.

On BSE, 130 stocks touched their 52-high. These included AMI Organics, Arvind SmartSpaces, Borosil, City Union Bank, Coforge, CRISIL, Deepak Ferttilisers, Gillette India, Indigo Paints, JagsonpalPharma, Krsnaa Diagnostics, Poly Medicure, among others.

The top gainers were Maruti Suzuki India (1.92%), Indusind Bank (1.81%), Larsen & Toubro (0.77%), ITC (0.72%), Ultratech Cement (0.71%).

While on the losing side were Infosys (2.01%), ICICI Bank (1.52%), Kotak Mahindra Bank (1.32%), Mahindra & Mahindra (1.28%), State Bank of India (1.23%).

The BSE Midcap index ended flat and the smallcap index rose 1.5%.

Among the sectors, FMCG, capital goods and media were up 0.5-2%, while bank, pharma, IT fell 1% each.

Nifty Consumer Durables, Nifty Pharma, and Nifty IT, all recorded declines exceeding 0.8%. Conversely, Nifty Media gained 2.34%, followed by Nifty FMCG with an increase of nearly one per cent.

Shares of the flagship Adani firm, Adani Enterprises rallied almost 4% after the company’s solid Q2 earnings. Its net profit ballooned nearly eightfold to Rs 1,742 crore.

Force Motors shares were locked in 20% upper circuit after the company posted strong second quarter earnings.

Voltas shares fell over 4 per cent after declaring its Q2 earnings.

Shares of Cipla fell 4 per cent after analysts cut their target price on the stock following the company’s second quarter earnings.

Market’s appeal remains strong due to healthy order books and ongoing capacity expansion.