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Investors turned cautious weighing weak GDP numbers and continued drop in automobile sales, bringing banking and auto sector stocks under pressure.
Illustration: Dominic Xavier/Rediff.com
Market gauges Sensex and Nifty closed on a flat note after a see-saw trade on Monday as losses in auto and private bank stocks offset rally in telecom counters.
Investors turned cautious weighing weak GDP numbers and continued drop in automobile sales, bringing banking and auto sector stocks under pressure.
Besides, participants also took a defensive stance ahead of Reserve Bank's monetary policy meet.
After a volatile day of trading, the 30-share BSE Sensex closed marginally higher by 8.36 points or 0.02 per cent at 40,802.17.
The index swung between a high of 41,093.99 and a low of 40,707.63 during the day.
On the other hand, the broader NSE Nifty settled 7.85 points or 0.07 per cent down at 12,048.20.
On the Sensex chart, Bharti Airtel emerged as the biggest gainer with a rise of 3.67 per cent.
Reliance Industries, parent firm of RJio, rose 2.28 per cent.
Shares of telecom companies surged on the back of new tariff plans announced by the operators to be effective from December 3 onwards.
Another operator Vodafone Idea too saw its shares close over 14 per cent at Rs 7.79 per unit on the BSE.
The stock rose 22.63 per cent to Rs 8.40 on the NSE.
Apart from Airtel and RIL, other top Sensex gainers were Asian Paints, Kotak Bank and Mahindra and Mahindra.
On the other hand, Yes bank was the biggest loser in the pack, dropping 6.22 per cent.
It was followed by Bajaj Finance, ONGC, Sun Pharma, Maruti Suzuki and Tech Mahindra - falling up to 3 per cent.
Subdued sales numbers of automobile companies led to fall in their shares.
Sectorally, telecom emerged as the top performing BSE index, surging over 2.64 per cent.
Other sectoral gainers on the BSE were energy, metal and basic materials, rising up to 1.28 per cent.
On the other hand, auto, IT and healthcare indices witnessed decline.
Of the 19 sectoral indices, 4 ended in the green and 15 in the red.
"Despite positive sentiment in the global market due to better-than-expected manufacturing data in China, domestic market traded range-bound on account of weak GDP, auto sales and ahead the RBI's monetary policy this week.
“But market hopes for further stimulus and ease in interest rates to revive the slowing economy.
“Weakness was broad based while telecom stocks jumped on account of aggressive tariff revision," Vinod Nair, head of research at Geojit Financial Services, said.