Barometers turn rangebound, European mkt opens higher

The headline equity indices traded in a narrow range with modest losses in afternoon trade. The Nifty hovered below the 21,650 mark after hitting the day`s high of 21,755.60 in early trade. Pharma, healthcare and oil & gas shares advanced while IT, realty and auto stocks corrected.

At 13:25 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was down 521.87 points or 0.72% to 71,76.79. The Nifty 50 index lost 126.10 points or 0.58% to 21,615.80.

In broader market, the S&P BSE Mid-Cap index declined 0.27% and the S&P BSE Small-Cap index shed 0.18%.

The market breadth was negative. On the BSE, 1,672 shares rose and 2,045 shares fell. A total of 128 shares were unchanged.

Gainers & Losers:

Sun Pharmaceutical Industries (up 2.80%), Divis Laboratories (up 2.61%), Coal India (up 2.20%), Cipla (up 1.99%) and Dr. Reddy`s laboratories (up 2%) were major Nifty gainers.

Eicher Motors (down 3.25%), Mahindra & Mahindra (down 2.60%), UltraTech Cement (down 2.36%), Larsen & Toubro (down 2.14%) and Wipro (down 1.99%) were major Nifty losers.

Stocks in Spotlight:

Power Grid Corporation of India added 0.04%. The company said that it has declared as successful bidder for setting up an inter-state transmission system project in Rajasthan.

Ashok Leyland slipped 2.42% after the company sold 16,324 vehicles in December 2023, which is lower by 10% as compared with 18,138 units sold in December 2022.

TVS Motor declined 2.44%. The 2-wheeler maker reported monthly sales of 301,898 units in December 2023, registering a growth of 25% as against 242,012 units sold in December 2022.

UltraTech Cement slipped 2.26%. The cement major said that its consolidated cement sales volume increased 6%YoY to 27.32 million tons (MT) in Q3 FY24.

Eicher Motors tumbled 3.43% after the auto maker�s total motorcycles (Royal Enfield) sales declined 7% to 63,387 units in December 2023 as against 68,400 units sold in December 2022.

Global Markets:

Markets in Europe advanced while Asian stock traded mixed on the first trading day of the year. Japan was assessing the damage from a powerful earthquake that struck its central region on New Year�s Day. Markets in the region ar closed until January 4.

A private survey showed manufacturing activity in China expanded in December. The Caixin manufacturing purchasing managers� index came in at 50.8 in December, according to a release Tuesday, following a 50.7 reading for November. China�s official PMI fell to 49 in December from 49.4 the previous month, the country�s National Bureau of Statistics said in a Sunday release.

U.S. markets were closed on Monday for New Year�s Day.

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