Sensex, Nifty pare early gains on profit-booking after surging over 200 points; Asian Paint, HUL, ONGC stocks rally

Mumbai: The BSE benchmark Sensex on Wednesday turned choppy on profit-booking, after surging over 200 points amid persistent fall in global crude prices amid easing concerns over rising current account deficit and inflation.

The 30-share Sensex was trading 14.78 points lower at 35,129.71, after it spurted 201 points, or 0.57 percent, to 35,345.49 points in opening session. The gauge had gained 332 points on Tuesday.

The NSE Nifty too witnessed similar movement, and was trading 1.85 points higher at 10,584.35. The index had risen 68.25 points, or 0.64 percent, to 10,650.75 in opening session. Investors began booking profits at higher levels as indices rallied after Brent crude plunged nearly 7 percent to a one-year low of USD 65 a barrel, traders said. Strengthening the rupee, which jumped 67 paise to 72 against the dollar in the forex market, and mixed Asian cues too influenced sentiment. Sectorally, oil and gas, PSU, metal indices and bankex were trading in the positive zone with gains of up to 3.26 percent. [caption id=“attachment_4418263” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Reuters[/caption] In the Sensex kitty, Sun Pharma, TCS, Infosys, Wipro and Adani Ports dragged benchmark indices by falling up to 4.25 percent. While, Asian Paint, Maruti Suzuki, HUL, ONGC, IndusInd Bank, Hero MotoCorp, NTPC, HDFC Ltd, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Yes Bank, RIL, SBI, PowerGrid, Kotak Bank and Vedanta were major gainers, rising by up to 3.89 percent. Shares of Tata Steel surged 2.94 percent after the company Tuesday posted a three-fold surge in consolidated net profit to Rs 3,116.2 crore for the quarter ended 30 September, 2018. Shares of oil marketing companies and aviation operators made further headway on falling crude oil prices. State-run HPCL, BPCL and IOC were trading higher up to 9.39 percent. In the aviation sector, shares of Interglobe Aviation and Jet Airways gained up to 5.18 percent. On a net basis, domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought shares worth Rs 335.78 crore Monday, while foreign institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded shares worth Rs 494.95 crore, as per provisional data. Elsewhere in Asia, Japan’s Nikkei rose 0.31 percent, Taiwan Index up 0.14 percent, while Shanghai Composite Index shed 0.06 percent. The US Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 0.40 percent lower Tuesday.