Mumbai. The local stock markets witnessed a slight decline on Monday in a volatile trading session. During trading, the Sensex had once crossed the record 76,000 mark for the first time while the NSE Nifty had reached its highest level ever, but later they declined due to selling pressure. The market fluctuated due to profit booking by investors in the last half hour of trading.
The 30-share BSE Sensex closed at 75,390.50 points with a marginal decline of 19.89 points or 0.03 percent. During trading, it jumped 599.29 points to an all-time high of 76,009.68 points due to buying in select banks, financial and IT stocks. However, investors booked profits at record levels and the index fell by about 835 points from the day’s highest level and came down to 75,175.27 points.
National Stock Exchange’s Nifty also closed with a slight decline of 24.65 points i.e. 0.11 percent at 22,932.45 points.
During trading, the 50-share Nifty rose 153.7 points to a record high of 23,110.80 points. However, before the end of trading, it fell by about 240 points due to selling in the shares of oil, energy and daily use goods companies.
Shares of Reliance Industries, which has a strong share in the index, fell by about one percent. This caused the benchmark index to suffer losses. The market also suffered losses due to selling in ITC shares. The stock market witnessed a record rise for the third consecutive day before the results of the Lok Sabha elections and due to the rise in global markets. The results of the general elections will be announced on June 4.
Earlier, the Sensex crossed the historic 75,000 mark for the first time on April 9. It rose 1,000 points in 31 trading sessions and reached the 76,000 mark during trading on Monday. After reaching 74,000 points on March 6, the Sensex reached the 75,000 mark on April 9 in 21 trading days. Among the Sensex companies, Wipro, NTPC, Sun Pharma, Mahindra & Mahindra, ITC and Reliance Industries were in loss. On the other hand, IndusInd Bank, Axis Bank, Bajaj Finance, HDFC Bank, Larsen & Toubro and State Bank of India are among the stocks that made profits.
Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Financial Services, said, “Bulls are facing stiff resistance at the level of 23,000. Investors are booking profits at higher levels to avoid turmoil before the election results are announced.” He said, “The market is being positively affected due to reasons such as better earnings growth of companies, expectation of private capital expenditure to pick up pace and reduced selling by foreign institutional investors.” Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research, HDFC Securities, said, “After reaching a record high, Nifty remained almost stable in volatile trading.” The index of shares of mid-sized companies, BSE Midcap, rose 0.63 percent while the index of small companies, Smallcap, fell 0.09 percent.
In other Asian markets, South Korea’s Kospi, Japan’s Nikkei, China’s Shanghai Composite and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng were in gains. Major European markets also saw gains in early trade. US market Wall Street was in profit on Friday. Global oil benchmark Brent crude rose 0.38 percent to $82.44 per barrel. According to stock market data, foreign institutional investors sold shares worth Rs 944.83 crore on Friday.