The frontline indices dropped further in early afternoon trade and moreover hit a fresh intraday low. The NIFTY dropped to the 20,800 level after hitting the day’s high of 20,396 in early trade. Oil and gas shares are still in losses for the fourth straight session.
At 12:30 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was down 441.25 points or 0.63% to 69,231.83. The Nifty 50 index lost 127.25 points or 0.61% to 20,779.15.
However, the broader market outperformed the frontline indices.The S&P BSE Mid-Cap index rose 0.24% and the S&P BSE Small-Cap index added 0.25%.
The market breadth was positive. On the BSE, 1,930 shares rose and 1,730 shares fell. A total of 139 shares were unchanged.
The Nifty Oil & Gas index declined 0.73% to 8,862.10. The index slipped 2.72% in four trading sessions.
Adani Total Gas (down 9.78%), Gujarat Gas (down 1.05%), Oil & Natural Gas Corpn (down 0.9%), Reliance Industries (down 0.46%), Castrol India (down 0.36%), Petronet LNG (down 0.31%), Oil India (down 0.26%), Indraprastha Gas (down 0.23%), Mahanagar Gas (down 0.03%) edged lower.
On the other hand, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (up 2.91%), GAIL (India) (up 0.79%) and Indian Oil Corporation (up 0.77%) advanced.
Written by Nalin Suriya S
