Market Wrap, Dec 23: Sensex slips 39 pts; Reliance Ind decline nearly 2%

Profit-booking across financial counters after last week's rally, and selling in select index heavyweights put lid on gains during Monday's trading session. Despite witnessing a sharp slide during the last trading hour, markets recovered to settle flat.

The benchmark S&P BSE Sensex closed 38.88 points, or 0.93 per cent, lower at 41,642.66 level, dragged by Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank, State Bank of India (SBI), and ITC.  On the NSE, the broader Nifty50 index declined 9.05 points, or 0.074 per cent, to settle at 12,262.75 level. The Sensex and Nifty50 hit an intra-day low of 41,474.61 and 12,213.25, respectively. 

 At the index level, Nestle, SBI, RIL, and M&M were the top laggards on the Sensex, while Maruti Suzuki, Hero Motocorp, HDFC, and Titan ended the day as top gainers.

On the sectoral front, Nifty PSU Bank index slumped the most, down 1.29 per cent, while Nifty Realty and FMCG indices, each, closed nearly 0.5 per cent lower. On the upside, Nifty Media index advanced 0.7 per cent. 

The broader markets settled almost flat on Monday. The S&P BSE mid-cap index slipped 0.09 per cent to 14,822.60 -mark, while the S&P BSE small-cap index erased 0.07 per cent to 13,382.03 level. 
 

Buzzing stocks

Shares of Reliance Industries declined as much as 2.77 per cent in the intra-day deals on the BSE on Monday after the government filed petition in the Delhi High Court (HC) seeking to block its $15 billion deal with Saudi Aramco, in view of dues of $3.5 billion in the Panna-Mukta and Tapti (PMT) oil and gas fields. The stock closed 1.88 per cent lower at Rs 1,569.3 apiece.
 

Shares of Adani Green Energy were locked in 5 per cent upper circuit at Rs 142, also its new high, on the BSE on Monday on the back of heavy volumes. The stock surpassed its previous high of Rs 139 touched on December 2, 2019.

The trading volumes on the counter jumped 1.5 times with a combined 1.9 million equity shares changing hands on the NSE and BSE. There were pending buy orders for 216,123 shares on both the exchanges at 12:24 pm. The stock eventually closed at 141.85, 5% up.

Shares of Lux Industries slipped 7 per cent to Rs 1,301 on the BSE on Monday after more than 4 per cent equity of the hosiery company changed hands via block deals.

Around 1.09 million equity shares, representing 4.31 per cent of total equity, of Lux Industries changed hands via two block deals on the BSE, the exchange data shows. The name of the buyers and sellers are not ascertained immediately. The stock ended the day 7.20% lower at 1300.40 in NSE.
 

GLOBAL CUES

European shares dipped slightly on Monday after nearing a record high in the previous session, as trading thinned ahead of the Christmas and Boxing Day holidays later in the week. The pan-European STOXX 600 index was down 0.1 per cent, with the banking sector leading declines.

Asian markets idled near 18-month highs on Monday. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan hovered near its highest since June 2018, having risen 1.4 per cent last week and more than 5 per cent this month. For the final quarter of the year, it is up nearly 10 per cent so far.