Equity benchmark indices erased initial losses to hit all-time highs on Wednesday as the Sensex hit a fresh record high, surpassing the coveted 74,000 mark for the first time, while the Nifty 50 also reached a new peak in intraday trading.

Sensex closed at a fresh all-time high of 74,151.27 while the Nifty 50 hit its record high of 22,497.20 during the session.

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Nifty 50 closed at 22,474.05, up 118 points, or 0.53 per cent, while the Sensex settled at 74,085.99, up 409 points, or 0.55 per cent.

BSE Midcap index ended with a loss of 0.65 per cent while the Smallcap index closed 1.91 per cent down.

The sharp selloff in the small and mid-cap segments also dragged the overall market breadth heavily in favour of laggards so much so that nearly five stocks fell for each one that rose.

Notably, the market participants have turned cautious about the smallcap space as mutual fund schemes have started to restrict inflows into the smallcap funds and market regulator SEBI has asked the mutual fund industry to be more vigilant in small, midcap schemes to protect investors’ interest.

At the stock market, around 100 stocks, including IIFL Finance, Atul, KRBL, SBI Cards and Payment Services, Sumitomo Chemical India, Timken India and Zee Entertainment Enterprises, hit their fresh 52-week lows in intraday trade on BSE.

Bajaj Auto (up 3.43 per cent), Kotak Mahindra Bank (up 2.56 per cent ) and Bharti Airtel (up 2.37 per cent ) closed as the top gainers while the Adani Enterprises (down 2.18 per cent ), NTPC (down 1.88 per cent) and UltraTech Cement (down 1.83 per cent ) were the losers.

In a sector wise analysis, Nifty Bank closed with a healthy gain of 0.81 per cent, Healthcare by 0.84 per cent and IT by 0.77 per cent . Nifty Media fell 2.54 per cent Nifty Realty 1.34 per cent , Nifty Oil & Gas 1.03 per cent , and Nifty Metal 0.52 per cent .

After the RBI’s move on the IIFL Finance and JM Financial, a meltdown was witnessed in these two stocks.

IIFL Finance nosedived 20 per cent in the second straight session of loss while the JM Financial crashed 19 per cent .

Global markets witnessed mixed signals ahead of the US Fed chair’s testimony to Congress.

The US Federal Reserve is under no urgent pressure to cut interest rates given a prospering economy and job market.