Indices see-saw on Covid fears, fag-end buying in telecom, banking stocks

Equity benchmarks closed in the positive territory after trading lower for most part of the session on Thursday on fag-end buying in telecom, banking and metal stocks amid expiry of monthly derivative contracts.

The 30-share BSE Sensex climbed 223.60 points or 0.37 per cent to settle at 61,133.88. During the day, it had declined 431.22 points or 0.70 per cent to 60,479.06.

Similarly, the broader NSE Nifty gained 68.50 points or 0.38 per cent to end at 18,191.
 

Bharti Airtel topped the Sensex gainers' chart with a jump of 1.99 per cent, followed by SBI, Tata Steel, IndusInd Bank, Axis Bank, Sun Pharma and ICICI Bank.

In contrast, Tata Motors, Titan, UltraTech Cement, Hindustan Unilever, Bajaj Finserv and Larsen & Toubro were the prominent laggards, shedding up to 1.41 per cent.

The market breadth was in favour of the bulls, with 19 advances and 11 declines.

In the broader market, the BSE smallcap gauge climbed 0.22 per cent, while the midcap index dipped 0.09 per cent. 

The shares of Shriram Finance fell 5.4 per cent on Thursday after listing of additional 17.4  crore shares of the company were added following the merger of Shriram group companies.

The stock ended the session at ~1,311.6, and the company at present commands a market capitalisation of ~49,110 crore.