Equity indices give up gains to end flat

Mumbai, June 30 (IANS) The Indian stock market on Tuesday plunged during the last hour of trade to end on a flat-to-negative note.

Analysts said that investors turned cautious ahead of the Prime Minister’s address to the nation at 4 p.m., which led to the fall in the market.

Siddhartha Khemka, Head of Retail Research at Motilal Oswal Financial Services, said: “Global sentiments were somewhat positive on the back of better than expected China’s factory data, strong US housing data and hopes of more US stimulus. However, domestic investors were cautious ahead of the PM’s speech post market hours.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his speech, announced the extension of the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana till November.

Khemka said that the market is likely to consolidate at the current levels, as the market oscillates between “greed and fear”.

“On one side, there is hope of gradual economic recovery along with strong liquidity inflows while on the other side, there is fear of sharp rise in Covid cases and chances of a second round of lockdown. We would advise investors to stay cautious and look for buying opportunities on declines,” he added.

Foreign portfolio investors (FPI) were net sellers on Tuesday with net FPI outflow of Rs 2,000.08 crore, while domestic institutional investors made a net purchase of Rs 2,051.31 crore.

The BSE Sensex closed at 34,915.80, lower by 45.72 points or 0.13 per cent from the previous close of 34,961.52.

It had opened at 35,168.30 and touched an intra-day high of 35,233.91 and a low of 34,812.80 points.

The Nifty50 on the National Stock Exchange closed at 10,302.10, lower by 10.30 points or 0.10 per cent from its previous close.

The major gainers on the Sensex were Maruti Suzuki India, Nestle India and ICICI Bank, while the major losers were Power Grid, Sun Pharmaceuticals and Bharti Airtel.

–IANS

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