Market off highs; Sensex down 149 pts; European shares advance

The key equity indices erased all the gains and traded with modest losses in afternoon trade. The Nifty traded around the 21,400 level. Barring the Nifty FMCG index, all the other sectoral indices traded in the red.

At 13:30 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was down 149.12 points or 0.21% to 71,288.07. The Nifty 50 index lost 51.50 points or 0.24% to 21,401.60.

The Nifty 50 and S&P BSE Sensex hit an all-time high at 21,593 and 71,913.07 respectively in early trade.

In the broader market, the S&P BSE Mid-Cap index slipped 0.96% and the S&P BSE Small-Cap index tumbled 1.24%.

The market breadth was negative. On the BSE, 1,308 shares rose and 2,414 shares fell. A total of 135 shares were unchanged.

Gainers & Losers:

Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) (up 3.22%), Tata Consumer Products (up 2.88%), Britannia Industries (up 1.85%), Hero MotoCorp (up 1.41%) and LTIMindtree (up 0.94%) were major Nifty gainers.

Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (down 2.70%), Adani Enterprises (down 1.87%), Tata Steel (down 1.85%), UPL (down 1.34%) and HCL Technologies (down 1.34%) were major Nifty losers.

HCL Technologies fell 1.34%. The IT major informed that it faced a ransomware attack in an isolated cloud environment for one of its projects. However, the firm stated there has been no impact observed due to this incident on the overall HCLTech network.

UPL shed 1.34%. The firm stated that its board will meet on Friday (December 22) to consider a proposal of fund raising by issue of equity shares through appropriate permissible modes.

Stocks in Spotlight:

Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) shed 0.31%. The state-owned oil marketing firm said that its board has approved a proposal for setting up a polypropylene unit for the production of polypropylene at Kochi refinery, at a gross project cost of Rs 5,044 crore.

IndusInd Bank rose 0.05% and Nippon Life India Asset Management advanced 2.99%. IndusInd Bank is reportedly likely to sell up to 1.79 crore shares, or 2.86% equity, in Nippon Life India Asset Management via block deals. The floor price has been set at Rs 426.60 per share, as per reports.

Varun Beverages surged 9.10% after the company announced that it is set to acquire 100% stake in South Africa-based, The Beverage Company (BevCo) along with its wholly-owned subsidiaries for Rs 1,320 crore.

Global Markets:

European stocks advanced after the UK Inflation declined sharply to 3.9% in November from 4.6% in October, lowest level in more than two years, the official data showed.

Asian stocks traded mixed on Wednesday, with Japan stocks extending gains to another session after the country�s central bank left its ultra-loose monetary policy unchanged at its final meeting this year.

The People�s Bank of China held its one-year loan prime rate at 3.45%. The five-year benchmark loan rate was unchanged at 4.2%.

US stocks ended higher on Tuesday as the Federal Reserve�s recent dovish shift on rates lifted stocks.

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