BENGALURU: Indian benchmark indexes gave up early gains to close broadly unchanged on Monday as traders booked profits and information technology and consumer stocks weighed.
The NSE Nifty 50 and the BSE S&P Sensex settled little changed at 24,836.1 and 81,355.84 points, respectively. Both the benchmarks had risen 0.4% to all-time highs earlier in the session.
Market participants are getting jittery with the Nifty rising to 25,000 points as valuations are high after a strong session on Friday, said Aishvarya Dadheech, founder and chief investment officer at Fident Asset Management.
However, the strength in the mid-cap stocks shows that the overall market sentiment remains positive, Dadheech said.
Indian stocks have been rising to record highs over the last several weeks, boosted by foreign inflows and despite the government last week raising the taxes on equity capital gains and derivatives trading.
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On Monday, the Nifty consumer goods index and information technology index dropped 0.3% and 0.4%, respectively, the two main drags among major sectors.
Shares on these two indexes had rallied in the past month, leading to profit booking as valuations remain high, said Saurabh Jain, assistant vice president for research at SMC Global Securities.
Nifty IT had gained 2.3% in the previous session, while the consumer goods index had risen 1%.
India’s small- and mid-cap indexes outperformed the blue-chips on Monday by rising about 1% each. The mid-caps notched a record closing high.
Construction major Larsen and Toubro surged 2.6%, among the top points gainers on the Nifty 50 after it secured multiple large orders.
Home appliances maker Whirlpool of India advanced 4.6% as its first-quarter net profit jumped by more than 90%.
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