Heavy selling in metal stocks hammer down key indices

♦ BSE Sensex moved in 740pts range

♦ Sensex settled 37.78 pts lower at 54,288.61

♦ NSE Nifty declined 51.45pts to 16,214.70

♦ Tata Steel tumbled the most by 12.53%

♦ UltraTech Cement, ITC, Power Grid, HDFC, HDFC Bank, HCL Tech and RIL in the red

♦ M&M, Maruti, HUL, L&T, Asian Paints and Kotak Mahindra Bank among gainers

Mumbai: In a highly choppy session, equity benchmarks pared early gains to settle on a flat note on Monday, with BSE Sensex falling 38 points amid a heavy sell-off in metal stocks. The 30-share BSE benchmark Sensex encountered volatility during the day and settled 37.78 points or 0.07 per cent lower at 54,288.61. During the day, it hit a high of 54,931.30 and a low of 54,191.55. The broader NSE Nifty declined 51.45 points or 0.32 per cent to end at 16,214.70.

Among the Sensex firms, Tata Steel tumbled the most by 12.53 per cent, followed by UltraTech Cement, ITC, Power Grid, HDFC, HDFC Bank, HCL Technologies and Reliance Industries. In contrast, M&M, Maruti, Hindustan Unilever, Larsen & Toubro, Asian Paints and Kotak Mahindra Bank were among the gainers.

"Nifty once again gave up the intra-day gains and ended in the negative. Metals stocks sold off post the levy of export duties over the weekend on iron ore and some steel intermediates," said Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research, HDFC Securities.

"Markets gave up all its gains in the afternoon trade today as it simply could not recover after the export tax imposed on steel products with the metal index falling almost 9 per cent to 5200 levels in the morning trade. Prospects of additional market borrowings by the GOI in the wake of the tax cuts on fuel to tame inflation also came to the forefront," said S. Ranganathan, Head of Research at LKP securities. The prolonged Russia-Ukraine conflict coupled with its consequences and inflationary pressures weighed heavily in the minds of investors and traders.

Meanwhile, Asian markets in Shanghai, Seoul and Tokyo ended higher, while Hong Kong settled lower. Equity exchanges in Europe were trading mostly higher in the afternoon session. Stock markets in the US had ended on a mixed note on Friday. International oil benchmark Brent crude gained 1.15 per cent to $113.8 per barrel. Foreign institutional investors offloaded shares worth Rs 1,265.41 crore on Friday, as per stock exchange data.