Sensex, Nifty end lower for third session; energy, pharma shares top losers

Sensex and Nifty closed lower in volatile trade for the third straight session today amid a selloff in energy, pharma and IT shares. After swinging about 700 points between gains and losses during the session, Sensex finally ended 59 points lower at 57,832.

Nifty dropped 28 points to 17,276. Ultratech Cement, M&M and Infosys were the top losers on Sensex, falling up to 1.88%. Of the 30 Sensex constituents, 17 ended in the red.

HDFC, L&T and Axis Bank were the top Sensex gainers, rising up to 1.25%.

BSE mid cap and small cap indices fell 192 points and 224 points, respectively.

Nagaraj Shetti, Technical Research Analyst, HDFC Securities said, "Nifty on the weekly chart placed at the significant trend line support around 17,000 levels. The formation of upper and lower shadow in the small positive weekly candle indicate presence of high volatility in the market.

The short-term trend of Nifty continues to be choppy. Inability of Nifty to sustain above 17500 levels could eventually result in a downward correction and that could possibly drag Nifty to retest a recent bottom of 16840 levels. Immediate support is placed at 17150 levels."

On the sectoral front, oil and gas, IT and healthcare shares led the losses today, with their BSE indices falling 208 points, 187 points and 213 points respectively.

The market breadth was negative with 1,154 shares ending higher against 2,201 stocks in the red. 116 shares were unchanged.

Market cap of BSE-listed firms fell to Rs 260.48 lakh crore against Rs 261.88 lakh crore in the previous session.

On Thursday, Sensex and Nifty closed lower in volatile trade amid a selloff led by banking shares. Sensex ended 104.67 points lower at 57,892 and Nifty dropped 17.60 points to 17,304.60. Banking shares led by ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and IndusInd Bank were the top losers on Sensex, falling up to 2%. Of the 30 Sensex constituents, 19 ended in the red.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were net sellers in the capital market on Thursday, as they offloaded shares worth Rs 1242 crore, according to stock exchange data.

Other Asian markets too ended lower as investors weighed renewed US warnings of an imminent Russian attack on Ukraine. Crude oil benchmark Brent futures dropped 2.19 per cent to trade at 90.93 per barrel.