The stock market on Wednesday ended with mild losses snapping the three-day winning run. The losses were led by shares of select heavyweights including HDFC Bank, Tata Motors and Reliance Industries.
Sensex was down 117 points or 0.2% at 72,987 and the Nifty 50 was down 17 points or 0.1% at 22,200. Also, 2,180 shares advanced, 1,471 shares declined, and 135 shares were unchanged.
On the 30-share pack Sensex, 16 stocks ended in the red, with shares of Asian Paints, Tata Motors, and HDFC Bank falling up to 2%.
On the Nifty 50 index, the top gainers were Coal India (4.19%), Cipla (3.55%) and BPPCL (3.42%) among the 23 stocks. On the losing side were the shares of Tata Motors (1.93%), Bajaj Auto (1.91%) and Asian Paints (1.85%).
On the sector-wise performance, Nifty Realty clocked a healthy gain of 1.02%, Nifty FMCG was down 0.91% and Auto was 0.50%.
Nifty Bank fell 0.36%, while the Private Bank index declined 0.33%, and the Nifty PSU Bank index jumped 1.42%.
The market capitalization of the firms listed on BSE moved up to nearly Rs 404.3 lakh crore from nearly Rs 402 lakh crore in the previous session riding on the gains in the mid and small-cap segments.
Shares of Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd hit an all-time high of Rs 2,306 apiece gaining 1.5%. The auto major is scheduled to announce its January-March quarter (Q4FY24) results tomorrow.
Realty major DLF witnessed a fall of over 2% even as brokerages reiterated a positive outlook.
Further, the data from NSDL showed that this month, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold Indian equities worth Rs 25,280 crore up to May 14.
Mixed global cues failed to boost the domestic market sentiment, which has been weak lately amid significant outflow of foreign capital.
While FIIs are currently aggressively selling Indian equities, it is expected that they will re-enter the market once the election uncertainty subsides.
DIIs are capitalising on the dip, snapping up shares sold by FIIs.
There is anticipation that the domestic market is likely to remain volatile until the announcement of election results in June.