Stock Market Today: Sensex, Nifty fall for third consecutive session; investors poorer by over a lakh crore in a day
Uncertainty over the debt-ceiling negotiations in the US continued weighing on market sentiment as the benchmarks the Sensex and the Nifty ended lower for the third consecutive session on May 18 with shares of ITC, SBI and Larsen & Toubro among the top drags.
US stocks futures were little changed while the European stocks were trading with mild gains when the Sensex closed as investors awaited more clarity on the debt-ceiling talks.
As per a Wall Street Journal report, US President Joe Biden said Wednesday (May 17) that he was confident a default would be avoided.
Sensex opened 377 points higher at 61,937.86 and rose 395 points in intraday trade but fell prey to profit booking in the final hour of the session.
The index fell 129 points, or 0.21 per cent, to end at 61,431.74 while the Nifty closed the day with a loss of 52 points, or 0.28 per cent, at 18,129.95.
Mid and smallcaps underperformed the benchmark. The BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices lost 0.67 per cent and 0.26 per cent, respectively.
The overall market capitalisation of BSE-listed firms dropped to ₹275.8 lakh crore from ₹277.2 lakh crore in the previous session, making investors poorer by ₹1.4 lakh crore in a single session.
In the last three sessions of losses, investors have lost nearly ₹3 lakh crore.
Meanwhile, crude oil prices eased after the previous session’s gains. Brent Crude traded near the $76 per barrel mark.
The rupee, on the other hand, dropped 21 paise to close at 82.60 per dollar, Bloomberg data showed, as the greenback rose to a seven-week high.
Top Nifty Gainers and Losers
Shares of Divi’s Labs (down 3.24 per cent), Adani Ports (down 2.93 per cent) and ITC (down 2.05 per cent) ended as the top losers in the Nifty index.
On the other hand, shares of Bajaj Finance (up 1.27 per cent), Bharti Airtel (up 0.98 per cent) and Kotak Mahindra Bank (up 0.93 per cent) ended as the top gainers in the Nifty pack.
As many as 34 stocks ended in the red in the Nifty index while the remaining 16 settled with gains.
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