Today’s stock market: Indices give up intraday gains to finish down; Sensex falls 311 points, Nifty falls below 17,550. 

The market today: The leading indexes on the BSE and NSE lost their intraday gains and finished approximately 0.5% down on Thursday due to the expiry of August-series futures and options (F&O) contracts.

The Sensex was down 310.71 points (0.53 percent) to 58,774.72, while the Nifty 50 was down 82.50 points (0.47 percent) to 17,522.45.Both indexes had begun higher by more than 0.4% earlier in the day and had moved higher for the majority of the session, climbing over 0.7% before giving up their gains and closing down in the last hour of trading.

On the Sensex, the top losers on Thursday were Bajaj Finance, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), IndusInd Bank, Axis Bank, Power Grid Corporation of India, NTPC, Larsen & Toubro (L&T), and Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC), while Maruti Suzuki India, State Bank of India (SBI), and Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories ended higher.
The Nifty IT index plunged 0.87 percent, the Nifty Metal index was down 0.51 percent, and the Nifty Pharma index fell 0.40 percent. The Nifty PSU Bank index, on the other hand, increased by 2.74 percent, while the Nifty Realty index increased by 1.47 percent.

The S&P BSE MidCap index ended the day at 25,019.90, up 50.56 points (0.20 percent), while the S&P BSE SmallCap index ended the day at 28,315.61, up 48.97 points (0.20 percent) (0.17 percent).The volatility index, or India VIX, increased 6.18 percent to 19.57 on the NSE.

“Nifty dipped on August 25, ending a two-day rally on the monthly F&O expiry day, dismissing the slight gains in markets elsewhere,” said Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research at HDFC Securities. The Nifty began with a gap up and climbed slightly in the morning. After 1415 hours, the Nifty saw a sell-off, causing it to settle 0.47 percent, or 82.5 points, down at 17522.5. Among industries, real estate and consumer durables were the biggest winners, while information technology was the biggest loser. The broad market outperformed the Nifty, as evidenced by the positive closes in the smallcap and midcap indexes, as well as the positive advance-decline ratio. ”

“Nifty has produced a bearish engulfing top on daily charts and appears to have made a lower high on a short term basis,” he added of the index. Nifty might see declines/sales on rallies till the high of 17,727 is surpassed. A drop below 17,345 might cause the decline to accelerate. “