Sensex, Nifty Close Lower for 7th Day: IT, Banking Drag

Mumbai, Feb 13 (PTI) Benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty pared early gains to close lower for the seventh straight day on Thursday, dragged by fag-end selling in select IT and banking shares and foreign fund outflows.

The 30-share BSE Sensex dipped 32.11 points or 0.04 per cent to settle at 76,138.97. The index stayed in the positive zone for the most part of the session. The benchmark gyrated 751.1 points between the day's high of 76,764.53 and low of 76,013.43.

The NSE Nifty slipped 13.85 points or 0.06 per cent to 23,031.40.

From the 30-share blue-chip pack, Adani Ports, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, State Bank of India, Nestle and Titan were among the laggards.

Sun Pharma, Tata Steel, Bajaj Finserv, Bajaj Finance, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Zomato were the biggest gainers.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded equities worth Rs 4,969.30 crore on Wednesday, according to exchange data.

"Despite initial market optimism driven by easing domestic inflation data, the rally lost momentum amid uncertain global cues and subdued corporate earnings. Furthermore, a surge in Chinese technology stocks, fuelled by heightened interest in artificial intelligence, redirected FIIs in pursuit of more attractive returns.

"Market participants are now closely monitoring the outcome of the Trump-Modi discussions for any trade and tariff concessions for a potential pullback rally," Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Financial Services, said.

Continuing the downward trend, retail inflation fell to a five-month low of 4.31 per cent in January, mainly due to a decline in the prices of vegetables, eggs, and pulses.

"As FIIs continued to maintain their sell stand, the market is beginning to get more volatile with investors booking profit in select frontliners. Weakness in select banking, auto, IT and FMCG stocks dragged key benchmark indices, which had clocked significant gains in early trade," Prashanth Tapse, Senior VP (Research), Mehta Equities Ltd, said.

The BSE smallcap gauge declined 0.43 per cent while midcap index went up marginally by 0.07 per cent.

Among BSE sectoral indices, BSE Focused IT tanked 0.98 per cent, IT dropped 0.93 per cent, FMCG (0.66 per cent), teck (0.64 per cent), consumer durables (0.44 per cent) and oil & gas (0.34 per cent).

BSE Healthcare, metal, financial services, commodities, telecommunication, power and realty were the gainers.

As many as 2,089 stocks declined while 1,858 advanced and 127 remained unchanged on the BSE.

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

European markets were trading on a mixed note. US markets ended mostly lower on Wednesday.

Global oil benchmark Brent crude declined 0.94 per cent to USD 74.47 a barrel.