Nifty hits record, slips; rally pauses for breath

National Stock Exchange’s benchmark Nifty kissed a new lifetime peak on Tuesday and the BSE’s Sensex crossed the 22,000-mark for the second day. But both indices closed in the red as traders booked profit in a pre-election rally that appeared to be pausing for breath.

National Stock Exchange’s benchmark Nifty kissed a new lifetime peak on Tuesday and the BSE’s Sensex crossed the 22,000-mark for the second day. But both indices closed in the red as traders booked profit in a pre-election rally that appeared to be pausing for breath.

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Amid a bullish trend arising from the anticipation of a more stable and business-friendly government at the Centre after elections, the Sensex snapped a five-session winning run to close at 21,826.42, down 0.49%, while the Nifty closed at 6,511.90, down 0.39%.

“The markets slipped after a flat opening on the back of profit-booking after a five-day rally,” said Alex Mathews, head of research, Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services.

Stocks in the metals (down 3.44%), banks (down 0.51%) and consumer durables (down 0.55%) sector slipped while shares in IT (up 0.14%) and power (up 0.69%) looked up somewhat.

“In addition, the downside in the equity markets was capped as foreign institutional investors (FII) continued buying,” added Mathews.

The FIIs bought shares worth Rs 1,253.65 crore in the capital market segment on Monday. On the other hand, domestic individual investors (DIIs) were net sellers and sold shares worth Rs 1,044.82 crore as per provisional data from the stock exchanges.

Top losers on the Nifty included Tata Steel, Hindalco, Sun Pharma, Sesa Sterlite Ltd, M&M and Maruti.

Although the markets were in the negative zone, some stocks hit fresh highs. These included Bajaj Finance (0.78%), Ceat (4.15%) and MRF (0.63%).