Indian shares ended Wednesday's rangebound session flat with the benchmark BSE Sensex settling in the red, down 36 points at 58,817. The Nifty50 closed nearly 10 points up, at 17,534, with ICICI Bank, Reliance Industries, and Larsen & Toubro helping the broader 50-share NSE hold on to the 17,500 mark.
Equities around the world largely fell ahead of the release of a key inflation reading in the US that would bring more clarity on the course of the Fed's hikes in COVID-era interest rates. Gains in financial, auto and healthcare stocks pushed the headline indices higher, though losses in IT names limited the upside.
Broader markets also ended mixed with the Nifty Midcap index slipping 47 points to 30,319. The banking gauge, Nifty Bank, rose 50 points to end at 38, 288.
Among gainers, Hindalco, UPL, Coal India, Apollo Hospitals and Tata Steel rose by up to 4.4 percent.
Metal stocks buoyed after Hindalco posted strong earnings with the sectoral gauge Nifty Metal settling 1.5 percent higher.
Hindalco's net profit surged to a record high of Rs 4,119 crore jumping 48 percent from Rs 2,787 crore in the corresponding quarter last year. Hindalco's revenue rose 40 percent on a year-on-year basis to Rs 58,018 crore against Rs 41,358 crore in the first quarter of the previous fiscal.
Pidilite Industries — a consumer and industrial specialty chemicals maker whose brands include Fevicol — on Wednesday reported a strong quarterly performance driven by better-than-expected growth in volumes.
Pidilite's net profit for the April-June period jumped 64.3 percent to Rs 357.5 crore compared with the corresponding period a year ago.
Among losers on Nifty, Bajaj Finance dropped more than 2.6 percent, while NTPC fell 2.3 percent. ONGC, HCL Tech and Adani Ports were other laggards, falling by up to 2 percent.
MRF shares faced selling pressure, a day after the tyre maker reported a 29 percent fall in quarterly net profit, marred by elevated input costs on account of higher raw material prices. The MRF stock fell by Rs 5,096.9 or 5.8 percent to Rs 82,615.4 apiece on BSE at the weakest level of the day.
Shares of
EKI Energy plunged over 15 percent on Wednesday after the Lok Sabha on August 8 passed the Energy Conservation (Amendment) Bill to establish the carbon credit market in India.
Shares of
Lux Industries fell more than 7 percent on Wednesday after the company reported lower net profit with a hit to profitability during the June quarter.
The Indian Rupee ended Wednesday's trade higher at 79.52 agains the US dollar. The Indian currency had settled at 79.66 against the greenback on Monday.
Key equity indices in Asia ended lower with Hong Kong's Hang Seng the worst hit within the region, ending 2 percent lower. China's Shanghai Composite fell 0.5 percent, while South Korea's Kospi, Japan's Nikkei 225, and Taiwan's Taiex ended with 0.7-0.9 percent losses.
Meanwhile, Dalal Street is all set to have its first IPO or initial public offering in as many as 11 weeks. The
Syrma SGS IPO — a Chennai-based engineering and design company — will open for subscription on August 12 and close on August 18.
