Sensex, Nifty End Flat; Reliance Industries Gains, TCS Falls Ahead Of Earnings

The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 indexes ended on a flat note in trade on Friday as gains in Reliance Industries, Bharti Airtel, Maruti Suzuki, Hindustan Unilever and HCL Technologies were offset with losses in HDFC, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, IndusInd Bank, Tata Consultancy Services and State Bank of India.

The Sensex had touched a record high of 42,063.93 in the morning, but soon turned flat after banking shares came under selling pressure. The mid- and small-cap shares outperformed their larger peers for the third day in a row.

The Sensex ended at 41,945, up 13 points and Nifty 50 index closed 3 points lower at 12,352.

Six of 11 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange ended lower led by the Nifty Bank index's 0.8 per cent fall.

In stock-specific news, market heavyweight Reliance Industries gained 2.7 per cent at Rs 1,580, while TCS ended lower by 0.7 per cent at Rs 2,220 ahead of its Q3 numbers. Among other stocks, Sun Pharma, Hero Motocorp and ONGC gained about half a per cent each.

On the other hand, financial stocks saw selling pressure across the board. IndusInd Bank, SBI, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and HDFC shed between 1 per cent to 2 per cent each.

Telecom stocks had a mixed closing a day after the Supreme Court delivered its verdict on the AGR review petition. Bharti Airtel climbed by 5.4 per cent at Rs 500, while Vodafone Idea nosedived 25 per cent at Rs 4.5. In a major setback for mobile service providers, the Supreme Court on Thursday had rejected telecom companies' plea seeking a review of its earlier order that allowed the government to collect dues worth Rs 92,000 crore from them.

The market breadth was positive. Out of 2,716 stocks traded on the BSE, there were 1,323 advancing stocks as against 1,218 declines.