The Indian equity benchmarks recovered from intraday lows in noon deals on reports that US President Joe Biden agreed to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Sensex rose as much as 739 points from the day's lowest level and Nifty 50 index touched an intraday high of 17,260 after testing low of 17,070 on the back of buying interest in banking and financial services shares.
As of 12:01 pm, the Sensex was up 61 points at 57,985 and Nifty 50 index slipped 7 points to 17,269.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the administration has been clear that “we are committed to pursuing diplomacy until the moment an invasion begins.” U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov are set to meet on Thursday in Europe as long as a further invasion doesn’t occur, news agency AP reported.
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Eleven of 15 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading lower led by the Nifty Media index's 1.5 per cent decline. Nifty Oil & Gas, Consumer Durables, Metal, IIT and FMCG indices also trimmed losses.
On the other hand, banking and financial services shares were leading the recovery with Nifty Bank index rising 1 per cent and Nifty Financial Services index advancing over a per cent.
Mid- and small-cap shares also trimmed losses as Nifty Midcap 100 index was down 0.35 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index declined 1 per cent.
UPL was top Nifty loser, the stock fell nearly 2 per cent to Rs 711. Hindalco, TCS, ONGC, Divi's Labs, Titan, Sun Pharma, Mahindra & Mahindra, Bharat Petroleum and SBI Life were also among the losers.
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On the flipside, Shree Cements, ICICI Bank, IndusInd Bank, Power Grid, Tata Motors, HDFC Bank, Hero MotoCorp, Axis Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Maruti Suzuki and Infosys were among the gainers.
The overall market breadth was negative as 2,453 shares were declining while 878 were advancing on the BSE.
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