Stock market today: Indian equity benchmark indices, BSE Sensex and Nifty50, closed in red on Monday after hitting life-time highs in intra-day trade. While BSE Sensex scaled above the 77,000 mark, Nifty50 went above 23,400 in intra-day trade. BSE Sensex closed the day at 76,490.08, down 203 points or 0.27%. Nifty50 ended the day at 23,259.20, down 31 points or 0.13%.
The top gainers on Sensex 30 included UltraTech Cement, Power Grid, Nestle India, Axis Bank, NTPC, Tata Steel and Tata Motors.The top losers on Sensex 30 included Tech Mahindra, Infosys, Wipro, M&M, Bajaj Finance, TCS and HCL Tech.
The domestic stock market ended the previous week near record highs, despite significant fluctuations caused by election-related uncertainty. Analysts anticipate that the upward trend will persist, with attention now turning to crucial economic indicators both domestically and globally.
Nagaraj Shetti of HDFC Securities says that there is a possibility of a minor dip in the market from the highs in the short term, around the 23300-23400 levels, which could present a buying opportunity. The immediate support level is at 22900.
Oil prices edged lower for the second consecutive session on Monday, pressured by a stronger dollar as expectations of interest rate cuts were pushed further out following robust U.S. jobs data on Friday. Brent crude futures and U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures slipped 4 cents to $79.58 and $75.49 a barrel, respectively, by 0036 GMT.
ZEE, Balrampur Chini Mills, and SAIL were among the stocks in the F&O ban today. Securities in the ban period under the F&O segment include companies in which the security has crossed 95% of the market-wide position limit.
Foreign portfolio investors were net buyers at Rs 4,391 crore on Friday, while domestic institutional investors sold shares worth Rs 1,289 crore. The rupee appreciated by 13 paise to 83.40 against the US dollar on Friday, in line with a firm trend in domestic equity markets after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) maintained the key policy rate.
The net short position of foreign institutional investors increased from Rs 2.87 lakh crore on Thursday to Rs 1.92 lakh crore on Friday.