Markets settle with marginal gains in highly volatile trade

Mumbai: Market benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty ended with marginal gains on Thursday after falling in the past three days, helped by fag-end buying in energy, telecom and utility stocks.

Investors remained cautious amid renewed foreign fund outflows and prevailing risk-off sentiments ahead of US Federal Reserve's interest rate decision, traders said.

In a highly volatile trade, the 30-share BSE Sensex climbed 64.55 points or 0.11 per cent to settle at 59,632.35. During the day, it hit a high of 59,836.79 and a low of 59,489.98.

The broader NSE Nifty went up by 5.70 points or 0.03 per cent to finish at 17,624.45.

"Markets ended the 3-day losing streak on selective buying in financials, telecom and utility stocks. The market had run up sharply over the past week or so, but with FIIs turning sellers in the last few sessions and global central banks signalling more hawkish bets going ahead, traders are maintaining a cautious stance," said Shrikant Chouhan, Head of Equity Research (Retail), Kotak Securities Ltd.

Among the Sensex firms, Asian Paints, NTPC, Tata Motors, Bharti Airtel, State Bank of India, Larsen & Toubro, Wipro, Tech Mahindra, Tata Consultancy Services, ITC, HDFC Bank and Maruti were the biggest winners.

Hindustan Unilever, Infosys, UltraTech Cement, Bajaj Finance, Nestle, Axis Bank, Reliance Industries and HDFC were among the laggards.

In the broader market, the BSE midcap gauge ended marginally lower by 0.03 per cent, while smallcap index climbed 0.10 per cent.

Among indices, services jumped 0.89 per cent, utilities climbed 0.85 per cent, telecommunication (0.81 per cent), power (0.74 per cent), industrials (0.63 per cent), capital goods (0.58 per cent).

Realty, FMCG, metal, commodities, energy, IT and oil & gas were the laggards.

"Markets traded lackluster for yet another session and ended almost unchanged on the weekly expiry day. Most sectors traded in sync however a decline in pharma, FMCG and metal were weighing on sentiment. And, we had a similar trend on the broader front wherein both midcap and smallcap closed flat," said Ajit Mishra, VP - Technical Research, Religare Broking Ltd.

In Asian markets, Japan and Hong Kong settled in the positive territory, while Seoul and Shanghai ended lower.

European markets were trading in the negative zone. The US markets had ended mostly lower on Wednesday.

"The ongoing Q4 earnings is the focus area of the market. It has a negative bias due to lower-than-anticipated initial results announced, especially in the IT sector. The global market has been unsupportive due to expectation of another rate hike and mixed earnings released in the US. Given cautious global sentiment, withdrawal by FIIs during the week has hampered the market trend," said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.

Falling for the third day, the BSE Sensex declined 159.21 points or 0.27 per cent to settle at 59,567.80 on Wednesday. The Nifty dipped 41.40 points or 0.23 per cent to end at 17,618.75.

Meanwhile, global oil benchmark Brent crude declined 1.89 per cent to USD 81.55 per barrel.

Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) offloaded equities worth Rs 1,169.32 crore on Thursday, according to exchange data.