Stocks lost early gains to trade flat in the morning session as banking, auto, FMCG and energy shares witnessed selling despite strong global cues. The BSE Sensex was trading down by 36.06 points or 0.11% at 33,776.69 at 9.50 am. The 30-share index had risen by 148.38 points, or 0.43%, to 33,961.13 in opening trade with all sectoral indices led by realty, power and infrastructure advancing by up to 0.82%.
SBI dropped the most by over 1% among Sensex scrips. Hindustan Unilever, Kotak Bank and Asian Paints also dropped up to 1%. Shares of GMR Infra dropped over 6 percent in Tuesday’s trade amid a report suggesting three firms – Adani Power, state-run Neyveli Lignite and Singapore-based Sembcorp Industries – are in the race to acquire a majority stake in the company’s 1,370-mw thermal power plant in Chhattisgarh. Mahindra & Mahindra, Dr Reddy’s Labs, Cipla, Sun Pharma, GAIL, Tata Steel, Coal India, TCS, HCL Technologies, ONGC, and Infosys opened in green, giving momentum to early morning trade. In the auto space, Bajaj Auto, Tata Motors and M&M too were in keen demand largely on the back of encouraging sales data for December and gained up to 1.51%.
The equity markets started off on a cautious note in New year 2018, as a late sell-off in auto, banking and IT shares pulled back the Sensex from record high level on Friday to close down by 244 points, registering its biggest single loss in past one month, on the first trading day of 2018.Stocks which lost include HDFC Ltd, Tata Steel, ONGC, Adani Ports, ICICI Bank, Reliance Industries, Asian Paint, HDFC Bank, SBI, Kotak Bank and Yes Bank, dropping by up to 1.35%.
Auto stocks such as Tata Motors, Bajaj Auto, M&M, Maruti Suzuki and Hero MotoCorp too came under pressure and lost up to 1.35% after December sales data failed to cheer investors. Maruti reported a 10 percent rise in December sales. Sensex declined 244 points, to close at 33,813. Nifty slumped 95 points, to 10,436 on Monday.
With PTI inputs