Sensex ends flat as Titan and Bharti Airtel top losers

Mumbai, June 19 (IANS) Indian equity indices closed flat on Wednesday as Titan, Bharti Airtel and Maruti Suzuki were top losers.

During the trading hours, Sensex and Nifty made a new lifetime high of 77,851 and 23,664 respectively. This is the fourth consecutive session when benchmarks hit a fresh lifetime high.

At closing, Sensex was at 77,337, up 36 points or 0.05 per cent, and Nifty was down 41 points or 0.18 per cent.

On Wednesday, Bank Nifty emerged as the top sectoral contributor to the main indices. It surged by 1.90 per cent and settled at 51,398.

Stocks of Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, IndusInd Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, SBI, IDFC First Bank, and Bandhan Bank shot up by 1 to 3 per cent.

According to experts, "Nifty50 and Sensex hit fresh record highs for the fourth consecutive session today. After the release of US retail sales data that fell short of expectations, the gains were led by stocks in the Banking and IT sector."

"However, these factors strengthened expectations of the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates in near-term 10-year bond yield also declining to 4.22 per cent. These factors are pushing FII to buy more benefiting stocks like HDFC bank, ICICI bank and Axis Bank which are available at an attractive valuation," they added.

Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, IndusInd Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, and SBI were the top gainers in the Sensex pack. Titan, Maruti Suzuki, Bharti Airtel, L&T, NTPC, Reliance and Power Grid were the top losers.