Closing Bell: Indian market halts the six-day losing streak

Domestic equity benchmarks Sensex and Nifty rebounded in a choppy trading session on Monday, ending its six-day falling streak led by banking, financials, power and auto counters. 

Indian equity market on Monday managed to higher, thereby pausing a sharp six-day plunge, amid volatile trade. The headline indices had marked their longest weekly losing session since 2020 on Friday. Owing to these developments, the benchmarks managed to close marginally higher. 

At the closing bell on May 16, the Sensex was up 180.22 points or 0.34% at 52,973.84, and the Nifty was up 60.10 points or 0.38% at 15,842.30. On the market breadth, 2180 shares have advanced, 1138 shares declined, and 172 shares are unchanged. 

Top Nifty gainers of the day were Eicher Motors, Apollo Hospitals, NTPC, UPL and Bajaj Finance. Top losers included UltraTech Cement, Shree Cements, Asian Paints, Grasim Industries and ITC. 

On the sectoral front, capital goods, auto, realty, power and PSU bank rose 1-3%. However, some selling was seen in the IT and FMCG sector. In the broad markets, the BSE midcap and smallcap indices rose over 1% each. 

In the trending stocks, shares of Ambuja Cement and ACC closed higher by 4% higher on the BSE after the Adani Group announced the acquisition of Swiss cement major Holcim's stake in all its Indian operating entities for USD 10.5 billion. 

Asian markets ended on a mixed note, with Hong Kong and Tokyo closing in the green, while Seoul and Shanghai ended marginally lower. In Europe, markets were trading on a mixed note in the afternoon session. Earlier on Friday, stock exchanges in the US had ended with smart gains. Foreign institutional investors had offloaded shares worth Rs 3,780.08 crore on Friday.