Shedding all its morning gains, the domestic equity market ended in the negative territory onTuesday amid sell-off in IT stocks and telecom major Bharti Airtel.
The S&P BSE Sensex slipped 477 points from day’s high to settle at 30,609.30, down 63 points or 0.21 per cent. Bharti Airtel ended nearly 6 per cent lower at Rs 559 apiece on the BSE after its promoter, Bharti Telecom, sold 2.75 per cent stake in the telecom services provider through open market deals today.
NSE’s Nifty ended at 9,029.05, down 10 points or 0.11 per cent. Volatility index, India VIX, dropped over 3 per cent to 31.37 levels.Broader market, however, outperformed the frontline indices. The Nifty Midcap100 index surged over 1.3 per cent to 12,836 points and the Nifty SmallCap index added 0.76 per cent to 3,880-mark.
On the sectoral front, IT and pharma stocks declined while auto and metal stocks advanced. The Nifty IT index fell nearly 2 per cent to 13,575 levels. The Nifty Metal index, on the other hand,
gained 2.7 per cent to 1,756.
Buzzing stocks
Avenue Supermarts, the D-Mart retail chain operator, declined 5 per cent on the BSE on profitbooking after the company’s January-March quarter (Q4FY20) results disappointed investors on the margin front. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization(EBITDA) margin contracted 68 basis points to 6.67 per cent in Q4FY20 from 7.35 per cent in Q4FY19, hit by higher depreciation and employee costs.
ITC ended nearly 3 per cent higher after the company announced it had entered into an agreement with the spices major Sunrise Foods to acquire a 100 per cent stake in the company.
