An evening walk down Dalal Street | Sensex, Nifty end mildly lower; metals crack

Bulls staged a tough fight in the last couple of hours of trade as they helped indices cut a huge chunk of their losses. Some fall in crude oil prices shored up rupee’s prospects. This, as a result, boosted the market too. At the end of session, indices closed mildly lower.

The Sensex managed to recover over 240 points in trade, while the Nifty recovered around 80 points.

In the broader market, the midcap index ended above flatline.

At the close of market hours, the Sensex ended down 52.66 points or 0.14% at 36431.67, while the Nifty was lower by 15.60 points or 0.14% at 10951.70. The market breadth was negative as 1217 shares advanced, against a decline of 1347 shares, while 165 shares were unchanged.

Yes Bank, Hero MotoCorp, and HPCL gained the most, while SBI, Wipro, and Grasim lost the most.

Stocks in the News

Shares of Coal India fell a percent after research house HDFC Securities has initiated sell with target price of Rs 199 per share.

Shares of Take Solutions added 7 percent as Axis Capital has initiated buy with target price of Rs 136 per share.

Share price of Alembic Pharmaceuticals ended flat after gaining 4 percent intraday Thursday after successful inspection by USFDA.

Shares of Om Metals Infraprojects rose nearly 17 percent after receiving a contract worth Rs 615.16 crore from the Rajasthan government.

Global Markets

Stocks in Asia were broadly lower after the US Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the fourth time in 2018.

The Shanghai composite slipped 0.52 percent to close at about 2,536.27 and the Shenzhen composite recovering from earlier losses to end the trading day up by 0.202 percent at around 1,297.10.

European stocks were sharply lower amid rate hike announcement by the US Federal Reserve. The pan-European STOXX 600 was 1.5 percent lower during early morning deals, with all sectors in negative territory. The FTSE 100, CAC 40 and DAX were down almost 2 percent, also falling to their lowest since late 2016.