Closing Bell: Indices end lower in a choppy trading session

Domestic equity benchmarks Sensex and Nifty ended a choppy session just below the flatline, as losses in auto, pharma and oil & gas shares offset gains. Globally, investors remained concerned as the Ukraine-Russia tussle resurfaced.

Indian market on Friday continued to fall for the third straight session dragged by losses in pharma stocks, realty, oil & gas stocks as investors turned cautious amid renewed fears of a Russian-Ukraine war. Today, both the indexes fluctuated between gains and losses throughout the trading session before settling in red.

At the closing bell on February 18, the Sensex was down 59.04 points or 0.10% at 57,832.97, and the Nifty was down 28.30 points or 0.16% at 17,276.30. On the market breadth, around 1129 shares have advanced, 2141 shares declined, and 112 shares are unchanged.

Top Nifty laggards of the day were ONGC, Divis Labs, UltraTech Cement, Cipla and Shree Cements. Top gainers included Coal India, SBI Life Insurance, HDFC, Bajaj Auto and Larsen and Toubro. Among the biggest loser, ONGC shares cracked 2.18% to Rs 168.

On the sectoral basis, except bank and capital goods, all other indices ended in the red with oil & gas and realty indices down 1% each. In the broad market, BSE Smallcap and Midcap indices are also closed lower.

NSE's India VIX index, known in market parlance as the fear gauge, went up 1.3% at 22.3 in the afternoon deals, having surged as much as 5.5% earlier in the day.

In this week, both the domestic benchmarks have witnessed a see-saw trade since Monday, mainly taking cues from the global markets. From a numbers perspective, foreign investors have sold a net USD 6.41 billion in Indian equities so far this year compared with net purchases of USD 5.82 billion in the same period last year.