Sensex, Nifty end lower after failing to hold opening gains: What drove today’s trade?

The equity benchmark indices BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty gave up their opening gains on Thursday and ended with minor cuts, with a sharp adjustment of over 400 points in the Sensex following the corporate action service on the weekly expiry day. Despite the benchmark weakness, the broader market remained stronger, keeping market breadth in favour of advances.
The rupee rose to a two-month high, tracking big foreign currency non-resident flows. Banks, capital-market stocks support tradeBanks provided support to the market, with Axis Bank and HDFC Bank among the top Nifty gainers. RBL Bank and IDFC First Bank gained up to 5% after big FCNR deposits.

BSE gained 4%, while Angel One moved higher, tracking the data. Adani Ports ended 2% higher after reacting positively to a brokerage note. Godrej Consumer, Ather Energy among losersGodrej Consumer Products fell 3% after inventory concerns emerged in the analyst meet.
Ather Energy extended Wednesday’s losses and closed 3% lower. Auto stocks, Inox Wind gainAuto companies including Blue Star and Voltas saw buying interest, rising up to 3%. Inox Wind surged 5% after an order win. Solar Industries India gained 4% on reports of an acquisition in the international market.

HCL Technologies Ltd, Tech Mahindra Ltd, Cipla Ltd, Titan Company Ltd, Bajaj Finance Ltd and SBI Life Insurance Company Ltd were the biggest laggards. Deven Choksey, MD, DRChoksey Finserv Private Ltd, on markets, said, "I think the larger part of the story remains unchanged, largely because of the pressure on the yield part, which is basically facing the situation of, I think, further sell-off in Indian markets due to the US bond yield, I think, to around 4.77%.
So, that is an area where probably, I think, the market feels uncomfortable. The internals of the markets are not so bad as against, I think, the mainline index stocks. Mainline index stocks definitely, I think, are facing a lot of pressure because over there, the relative amount of activity by the large investors like domestic financial institutions and the AMCs is comparatively less, vis-à-vis their activity happening more in the area of, I think, mid-cap and small-cap companies and also, of course, allocating money to their new IPOs, which are coming in battalions, actually.

And that's the reason why, I think, we are seeing the disappointing market journey continuing for the top-line stocks. But it is not so disappointing for mid-caps and small-cap companies, where largely the participation is happening from the domestic players, including some of the large individuals as well, into the respective category of stocks."Sudip Bandopadhyay, Market Expert, Inditrade Capital, on the banking sector, said, "I think the FCNR mobilisation by RBL Bank is a fantastic achievement.
I think the NBD relationship and NBD investment have really worked wonders, so they are going to move to a different league. I think there will be significant upside as far as their profitability is concerned, and costs, of course, will come down because the FCNR deposits don't attract CRR and SLR.

So, this is a great win for RBL. Out of the banks, I think we do like RBL, and we do like IndusInd Bank. I don't know the numbers as far as FCNR is concerned, but otherwise, from a turnaround perspective, we like IndusInd as well."