Indian equity benchmark indices continued to languish in the negative zone for a third day on Wednesday in a volatile session as March inflation spiked to a 17-month high level. Profit booking in banks and financial stocks weighed on the sentiment.

Share Market Live

NSE

The BSE Sensex slipped into the red zone around noon deals and ended 260.64 points lower, or 0.44 percent down at 58,315.73 while NSE Nifty ends at 17,465.80, down 64.50 points, or 0.37 percent lower.

HDFC, HDFC Bank, Maruti Suzuki, Dr Reddy's Labs, Tata Motors, PowerGrid, Asian Paints, Bajaj Finserv, Kotak Bank, Titan, Cipla, and Eicher Motors were the top drags on the Nifty today.

ONGC, Apollo Hospitals, Sun Pharma, ITC, UPL, JSW Steel, and Shree Cement were amongst the gainers - adding in the range of 1 to 3 percent.

The broader market traded mixed with the BSE MidCap index down 0.21 percent and the BSE SmallCap index up 0.27 percent.

Among sectoral indices, the Nifty Private Bank index was the worst hit as it fell 1 percent. The Nifty Metal index, on the other hand, gained the most, rising 0.57 percent.

Investors awaited more quarterly earnings reports from India Inc. Infosys is scheduled to report its financial results for the March quarter later in the day. The stock was trading 0.49 percent higher at Rs 1,751 on the BSE.

Rohit Srivastava, Founder & Strategist, Indiacharts.com said, "The markets have made a meaningful bottom in the month of March and what we've been trying to pan out is how we really navigate this entire move higher as news flow continues to be negative. In the very short term, we do have important support, which is close to the 20-day average, it's also a 61 percent retracement of the rally we saw from 17,003 from sometime late March to the highs, and then we pulled back. So around 17,428-17,430 is a critical support level."

Catch all the market updates here

First Published:Apr 13, 2022 3:54 PM IST