Nifty snapped a 4-day winning streak to end marginally lower

The Nifty snapped a 4-day winning streak to end marginally lower on Tuesday as traders booked profit in frontline even as the bid up mid cap counters and pushed PSU banking stocks further up.

Meanwhile, the Nifty ended 17 points lower to close at 8,544. Its Advance-Decline Ratio stood at 27:23 with Idea Cellular, Cairn India and Hero Motor being the top losers. Tata Steel, Bank of Baroda and Hindalco made up Nifty's top gainers list. State Bank of India was the most active counter on the Nifty, trading 2.88 crore shares.

While the frontline index was muted, traders shifted their attention to the middle rung counters. As a consequence, strong gains were seen on the CNX Nifty Junior, CNX Small Cap Index and the CNX Midcap Index respectively.

The Bank Nifty rose 57 points to 18,972 and its public sector counterpart the CNX PSU Index surged 3 percent to 3,650 points as traders just couldn't get enough of such lenders. The trend in other sectoral indices was equally strong. CNX Auto and CNX Metal Indices too posted smart gains while modest dips were seen on CNX Finance and CNX Media Indices.

On the Bombay Stock Exchange, the Sensex fell 115 points to close the day at 28,072 points. ONGC, Wipro and Tata Motors were stocks that ended below their Monday's close, while Mahindra and Mahindra, Coal India and Hindalco were among the gainers list. As a consequence, the Advance-Decline Ratio on the Sensex stood at 12/18.

The trend in the wider market favoured the bulls with 1,627 stocks rising versus 1,264 fell.

Overall trade was bearish in the derivatives space with Nifty Futures ending with modest losses. But Banking, Fertiliser, Metals and Textiles were the major gainers among 18 industries in both price and open interest. The Advance-Decline Ratio was a modest 89/72 in the futures and Options market.

Earnings from Britannia, Capital First and Nilkamal lit up the markets whereas those from Jay Shree Tea Industries disappointed investors.

Stocks that hit fresh 52 week highs were Amara Raja Batteries, Century Enka and Bharat Electronics.

(Image credits: Indiatimes)