Sensex, Nifty end lower for fourth straight session
Sensex closed with a loss of 455 points, or 0.62%, at 72,488.99 while the Nifty 50 ended the day at 21,995.85, down 152 points, or 0.69%.
Domestic benchmarks ended over 1.5 per cent higher on Thursday, boosted by a rally in index heavyweight Reliance Industries.
RIL stock jumped 8.45 per cent to a record high of Rs 2,343.90 on the BSE during the day after a BloombergQuint report said that the Indian conglomerate is offering to sell roughly $20 billion stake in its retail business to Amazon.com. In addition to this, on Wednesday, RIL had announced that US private equity firm Silver Lake Partners would buy 1.75 per cent stake in its retail arm for Rs 7,500 crore.
On the NSE, RIL gained 8.49 per cent to a lifetime high of Rs 2,344.95.
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The 30-share BSE index ended 646.40 points or 1.69 per cent higher at 38,840.32 while the NSE Nifty rallied 171.25 points or 1.52 per cent to 11,449.25.
As expected, Reliance Industries was the top gainer in the Sensex pack as it zoomed over 7 per cent. The company’s market valuation rose to Rs 14,66,589.53 crore ($199.64 billion) in late afternoon trade.
Other gainers included, Asian Paints, Axis Bank, UltraTech Cement, IndusInd Bank and Bajaj Finance.
On the other hand, Tata Steel, Bharti Airtel, Kotak Bank, HDFC Bank and Titan were among the laggards.
On the broader market front, the S&P MidCap and SmallCap ended 0.92 per cent and 1.27 per cent higher respectively.
Domestic equities started on a positive note, and extended gains mainly driven by strong buying sentiment in Reliance Industries, traders said.
Bourses in Shanghai and Hong Kong ended in the red, while Seoul and Tokyo closed with gains.
Stock exchanges in Europe were also trading on a mixed note.
Global oil benchmark Brent crude was trading 1.27 per cent lower at $40.27 per barrel.
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