Closing Bell: Oil and gas equities fall, Nifty closes above 16,350

Following speculations that the government may charge a windfall tax, oil & gas stocks saw considerable selling.

On Friday, the major market indices ended near their day's highs with substantial gains. Other Asian indices gave positive signals, which encouraged sentiment. Nifty ended the day above the 16,350 level. Stocks in information technology, banking, financials, and automobiles rose. Following speculations that the government may charge a windfall tax, oil & gas stocks saw considerable selling.  

BSE Sensex closed at 54,884 levels, zooming by 632 points. BSE Midcap index too jumped 374 points to end the day at 22,517 levels. Likewise, BSE Smallcap index has scaled by 303 points to close at 25,621 levels. The top stocks on BSE Sensex today were Tech Mahindra, Induslnd Bank, Wipro, Bajaj Finance, Mahindra & Mahindra, and Infosys. However, the Top Losers were NTPC, Bharti Airtel, Tata Steel, Reliance Industries, Asian Paints, and Nestle India.   

Nifty 50 ended in green at 16,352 levels with a gain of 182 points. Similarly, Bank Nifty shot up by 518 points and closed the day at 35,613 levels. The top gaining stocks were Apollo Hospitals, Tech Mahindra, HDFC Life Insurance, Induslnd Bank, and Wipro. The top losing stocks today were ONGC, NTPC, Power Grid Corporation of India, Tata Steel, and Bharti Airtel.  

The total stocks traded today were 3,448, out of which, 2,214 advanced and 1,107 stocks declined. There were 127 stocks that were unchanged. The number of stocks that were locked in the upper circuit was 280 while 212 stocks touched their lower circuits today. The number of stocks that have made a new 52-week high is 53 and there were 61 stocks that made a fresh 52-week low today.