Market breaks winning streak by ending in red

Breaking a consistent winning streak, Indian equity benchmarks ended the volatile day of trade marginally in red on Tuesday due to the selling in frontline blue chip stocks, despite strong trend seen in the other Asian markets.

After making a positive start, the markets turned cautious, thanks to the SBI report that stated that India's gross domestic product (GDP) growth is likely to slowdown further in the July-September quarter of this financial year to below 5 per cent amid decline in consumption, weak investments, and an under-performing service sector.

The markets extended their losses in afternoon trade as a private survey showed that India’s service sector activity declined for the second straight month in October, the first back-to-back reduction since the second quarter of 2017-18, dragging the business confidence to its lowest level in close to three years.

The BSE Sensex ended at 40,248.23, down by 53.73 points or 0.13% after trading in a range of 40,053.55 and 40,466.55. The broader indices ended in red, with the BSE Midcap index declining 1.13% and Smallcap dropping down by 0.80%.

The few gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were telecom and FMCG, up by 1.63% and 0.28%, respectively, while major decliners were consumer durables, healthcare, capital goods, metal, and basic materials, down by 1.20%, 0.98%, 0.98%, 0.85%, and 0.80%, respectively.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Yes Bank, Bajaj Finance, Bharti Airtel, SBI, and Bajaj Auto, up by 3.40%, 2.77% 1.60%, 1.59%, and 1.39%, respectively. On the other hand, the top losers were Indusind Bank, Sun Pharma, Infosys, Tata Steel, and Mahindra & Mahindra, reporting a respective decline of 2.40%, 2.02%, 1.86%, 1.26%, and 1.10%.