Sensex, Nifty Edge Lower; Adani Ports, Bajaj Finance Top Losers

The Indian equity benchmarks erased early gains and edged lower on Wednesday owing to weakness in index heavyweights like Infosys, HDFC, Bajaj Finance, HDFC Bank and NTPC. However, the downside was capped as ICICI Bank, Reliance Industries, Bharti Airtel, Hindustan Unilever, Sun Pharma and Nestle India were witnessing buying interest.

After rising as much as 131 points, the Sensex fell over 300 points from day’s high and Nifty 50 index touched an intraday low of 17,477. 

As of 9:35 am, the Sensex was down 50 points at 58,803 and Nifty 50 index declined 19 points to 17,506.

Asian markets fell following weak closing of US markets. Japan's Nikkei declined 0.65 per cent, Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 1.04 per cent, Taiwan Weighted declined 0.57 per cent and South Korea's KOSPI fell 0.81 per cent.

Overnight, stocks on Wall Street extended their recent run of losses Tuesday as investors reviewed disappointing earnings reports and looked ahead to the release of an inflation snapshot closely watched by the Federal Reserve.

The S&P 500 fell 0.4 per cent, marking its fourth consecutive drop. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.2 per cent and the Nasdaq slid 1.2 per cent.

Back home, nine of 15 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading lower led by the Nifty IT index's over 1 per cent fall. Nifty Metal, Media, PSU Bank, Realty, Consumer Durables, Oil & Gas and Auto indices were also trading lower.

On the other hand, select, FMCG, banking and pharma stocks were witnessing buying interest.

Mid- and small-cap shares were also facing selling pressure as Nifty Midcap 100 index declined 0.25 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index fell 0.35 per cent.

Adani Ports was top Nifty loser, the stock fell 2.5 per cent to Rs 782. Bajaj Finance, Wipro, HCL Technologies, Infosys, ONGC, Tech Mahindra, Asian Paints, JSW Steel and Tata Consultancy Services also fell between 1-2 per cent.

On the flipside, Sun Pharma, ICICI Bank, SBI Life, UPL, Nestle India, Coal India, HDFC Life and Eicher Motors were among the gainers.

The overall market breadth was negative as 1,526 shares were declining while 1,369 were advancing on the BSE.