File photo: Bombay Stock Exchange building, Mumbai. Photo: Niyantha Shekhar (CC BY 2.0)
The Sensex shed 69.86 points, or 0.09 per cent, to settle at 76,765.92 on Tuesday.
The Nifty 50 slipped 10.60 points, down 0.04 per cent, to close at 23,985.35, remaining below the 24,000 mark.
Bank Nifty declined 331.60 points, or 0.58 per cent, to end the day at 56,755.60.
IT stocks led the gainers, with the Nifty IT index rising 3.32 per cent on strong performances from TCS and Tech Mahindra.
Hindustan Unilever was the session’s biggest loser, sliding nearly 7 per cent after its quarterly earnings disappointed the market.
Coal India fell more than 4 per cent on a weaker-than-expected quarterly profit, citing lower production volumes and higher operating costs, while Bharat Electronics also ranked among the top losers.
The Nifty Midcap index gained 0.08 per cent, while the Nifty Smallcap index dropped 0.22 per cent.
Tuesday’s flat finish followed a sharp rally a day earlier, when the indices snapped a five-day losing streak driven by falling crude oil prices.
The day also marked the monthly expiry for Nifty futures and options contracts, which analysts said contributed to range-bound trading through large parts of the session.
Foreign institutional investors have been closely watched in recent sessions, with their buying or selling activity often cited as a factor behind the market’s day-to-day direction.
Hindustan Unilever’s fall came after the company reported quarterly numbers that fell short of analyst estimates, with investors reacting sharply to the miss given the stock’s weight in the consumer goods space within the benchmark indices.
The rally in IT stocks was broad-based, with several other companies in the sector also posting gains during the session, as investors responded positively to the outlook shared by some of the larger firms during recent earnings updates.
Coal India’s decline reflected wider concerns among investors about production volumes at state-run mining companies, a theme that has recurred in past quarters and continues to weigh on sentiment around the stock.
(Image: Niyantha Shekhar (CC BY 2.0))
