Mumbai: Indian stock market closed with a decline in Thursday’s trading session. Selling was seen in all the indices at the close of the market. The reason for the slowdown is believed to be the increasing tension between Russia and Ukraine.
At the end of trading, the Sensex was down 422 points or 0.54 percent at 77,155 and the Nifty was down 168 points or 0.72 percent at 23,349. The market trend was negative. On the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), 1235 stocks closed in the green mark, 2,735 stocks in the red mark and 95 stocks closed unchanged.
Along with largecaps, midcaps and smallcaps also saw a decline. The Nifty Midcap 100 index closed down 162 points or 0.30 percent at 54,385 and the Nifty Smallcap 100 index closed down 80 points or 0.46 percent at 17,596. The biggest impact of the decline was seen in auto, PSU bank, fin service, pharma, FMCG, metal and energy indices. Only IT, realty and private bank indices closed in the green. Power Grid, UltraTech Cement, HCL Tech, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Axis Bank, TCS, ICICI Bank and Infosys were the top gainers in the Sensex pack. SBI, NTPC, ITC, Asian Paints, Bajaj Finance, Bajaj Finserv, Reliance Industries, IndusInd Bank, Titan, Tata Motors and HUL were the top losers. Jatin Gedia, Research Analyst at Sharekhan, said that Nifty opened with a gap down in the trading session and after trading in a limited range, closed more than 160 points down. With this, Nifty has broken the important level of 23,350 and is now moving towards 23,180. In case of bullishness, 23,500 is an important resistance level. Gedia further said that Bank Nifty touched the 200 moving average of 49,800 on Thursday. However, recovery was seen from there and it closed 253 points down. 50,000 to 49,800 is going to be an important support zone for Bank Nifty. At the same time, the resistance level is 50,900 to 51,000.