Slippery Sensex close below 39,000; Dr Reddy's Lab becomes top Nifty gainer, Mphasis makes new lifetime high

Markets were slippery throughout the session on Thursday. Sensex tanked 323 points or 0.82 per cent to close at 38,979.75 levels. Nifty was down by 85.30 points or 0.74 per cent to close at 11,519.25 levels. 

Mid-caps and Small-caps saw some profit booking in today's session. BSE Mid-cap index was down by 0.24 per cent while BSE Small-cap index was down by 0.53 per cent. 

Happiest Minds Technologies Ltd closed at Rs 370.95 per share on NSE after making a high of Rs 394.95 per share on an intraday basis. The stock made a low of Rs 350 per share, which was also its opening price or the listing price. The stock got listed at 111 per cent premium over the issue price. 

Global markets were seen trading weak even as European markets remained on a high alert as the number of Coronavirus cases surged and consequently, targeted lockdowns seem to return. DAX slipped by 0.63 per cent, FTSE 100 was down by 0.95 per cent and CAC 40 slipped by 0.70 per cent. 

Meanwhile, the Asian markets struggled on Thursday where Nikkei was down by 0.67, Shanghai index slipped by 0.41 per cent and Hang Seng tanked by 1.56 per cent.

The top Sensex gainers were HCL Technologies that went up by 2.36 per cent, Infosys gained 0.96 per cent, Maruti Suzuki rose by 0.77 per cent and ONGC closed flat.

The top Sensex losers included Bajaj Finserv, which was down by 2.23 per cent, Power Grid slipped by 2.07 per cent, Larsen & Toubro weakened by 1.70 per cent. ICICI Bank plunged by 1.56 per cent, etc.

BSE Healthcare and BSE IT index were the only two sectoral indices on BSE to close in the green, recording gains of 0.46 per cent and 0.23 per cent, respectively.

BSE Realty index was the worst-performing sectoral index on BSE, down by 1.87 per cent.