Lacklustre trading at bourses, IT and FMCG stocks suffer
Dec 31, 2020
Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], December 31 : Equity benchmark indices traded at flat levels during thin year-end trading on Thursday with IT and FMCG stocks losing steam.
At 10:15 am, the BSE S&P Sensex was up by 38 points or 0.08 per cent at 47,784 while the Nifty 50 ticked higher by 3 points or 0.02 per cent to 13,985.
Most sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were also flat with Nifty pharma moving up by 0.8 per cent and realty by 0.5 per cent but Nifty IT lost by 0.4 per cent and FMCG by 0.2 per cent.
Among stocks, energy major ONGC gained by 1.4 per cent to Rs 94.60 per share while index heavyweight Reliance Industries advanced by 0.7 per cent to Rs 2,009.50.
Private lenders ICICI Bank and IndusInd Bank inched up by 0.9 per cent and 0.4 per cent respectively while pharma majors Dr Reddy's, Sun Pharma and Cipla gained by 1 per cent each.
Tata Motors and Bajaj Finserv too traded with a positive bias. However, IT giants Infosys and Tech Mahindra lost by 0.6 per cent. GAIL, NTPC, Mahindra & Mahindra and Hindustan Lever were in the negative terrain.
Meanwhile, Asian shares edged up and were set to end a tumultuous 2020 at record highs while investors hoped for a global economic recovery.
MSCI's gauge of Asia Pacific shares excluding Japan rose by 0.1 per cent to its latest peak.
Chinese blue chips rose by 1.45 per cent after official data showed that activity in China's service and factory sector expanded in December. The Hong Kong benchmark also rose by 0.26 per cent.
Markets in Japan and South Korea were on holiday.
