The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 indexes wiped out gains in the last 45 minutes of trade as banking and financial services shares came under intense selling pressure. For most part of the day, the benchmarks traded on a strong note wherein the Sensex surged as much as 659 points and the Nifty 50 index hit an intraday high of 9,439.90 supported by gains in auto, information technology, metal and energy shares. ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, HDFC and Kotak Mahindra Bank were among the top drags on the Sensex.
The Sensex ended 81 points or 0.26 per cent lower at 31,561.22 and Nifty 50 index fell 0.13 per cent or 12 points to close at 9,239.20.
Six of 11 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange ended lower led by Nifty Private Bank index's 2.2 per cent fall. Nifty Bank and Financial Services indexes also fell 2 per cent each.
On the other hand, Nifty Auto index rose 4.3 per cent. Metal and IT sector gauges also rose over 1.5 per cent.
Mid- and small-cap shares ended mixed as Nifty Midcap 100 index rose 0.6 per cent while the Nifty Smallcap 100 index fell 0.15 per cent.
Hero MotoCorp was top gainer in the Nifty 50 basket of shares, the stock rose 6 per cent to close at Rs 2,082. Tata Motors, Bharti Infratel, Bajaj Auto, Maruti Suzuki, Grasim Industries, Vedanta and Bajaj Auto were also among the gainers.
On the flipside, ICICI Bank was top Nifty loser, the stock fell 4.6 per cent after it reported a 26 per cent jump in net profit at Rs 1,221.36 crore for the quarter ended March 2020.
Bharat Petroleum, Dr Reddy's Labs, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Hindustan Unilever, HDFC, HDFC Bank, Nestle India, IndusInd Bank, Tech Mahindra and State Bank of India were also among the losers.
The overall market breadth was neutral as 1,287 closed higher while 1,106 ended lower on the BSE.
