Taking Stock | Nifty ends below 15,650 amid profit-booking; Sensex falls 334 points

Selling pressure in the second half of Wednesday's session erased early gains dragging benchmark indices in the negative territory. At close, the Sensex was down 333.93 points or 0.64% at 51,941.64, and the Nifty was down 104.70 points or 0.67% at 15,635.40.

"The index has been facing resistance at higher levels for a couple of days. As a result of this nervousness, it has given up some gains today which could be attributed to profit-booking," said Manish Hathiramani, proprietary index trader and technical analyst, Deen Dayal Investments.

"However, the trend continues to remain positive as Nifty has not broken 15,600 on a closing basis. Traders can utilize this drop as an opportunity to accumulate long positions on the index for higher targets of 15,900-16,000," he added.

All sectoral indices ended in the red with auto, infra and PSU Bank indices drropping 1 percent each. BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices lost 0.7-1 percent.

Tata Motors, Adani Ports, Shree Cements, L&T and Reliance Industries were among top losers, while gainers included Power Grid Corp, SBI Life Insurance, NTPC, Titan Company and Divis Labs.

Stocks & sectors

On BSE, except power index, all other sectoral indices ended in the red with capital goods, realty, auto and oil & gas indices falling 1 percent each.

Among individual stocks, a volume spike of more than 300 percent was seen in Granules, REC and Petronet LNG.

Long buildup was seen in Torrent Power, REC and Aarti Industries, while short buildup was seen in Petronet LNG, Shriram Transport and Pfizer.

More than 500 stocks, including Welspun Corp, Torrent Power, BHEL, IOC and Cipla, hit a fresh 52-week high on the BSE.

Technical View

Nifty formed a strong bearish candle on the daily scale as it engulfed the price recovery of the last four sessions and negated its formation of higher lows of the last four trading sessions.

"Nifty has to cross and hold above 15,600 zones to witness an up move towards 15,750 and fresh lifetime high of 15,800 zones, while on the downside support exists at 15,550 and 15,400 zones," said Chandan Taparia of Motilal Oswal Financial Services.

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