New Delhi, Aug 18 In a session marked by heavy volatility, India's key equity indices see-sawed to record highs but closed on a negative note during Wednesday's trade.
Accordingly, after a healthy buying spree, the market breadth turned weak due to profit booking and negative European cues.
Initially, the key indices had a gap-up opening. The two key domestic indices gradually rose to touch record high levels intra-day.
Consequently, the NSE Nifty50 touched a record high of 16,701.85 points, while the S&P BSE Sensex reached 56,118.57 points during the session.
But profit booking and negative European cues dented the sentiments.
Globally, Asian stocks edged up from a three-week low on Wednesday, but the gains were capped by ongoing fears about the Delta variant of Coronavirus, which also caused New Zealand's central bank to delay a previously expected rate hike.
Besides, European markets gave up early gains as investors weighed the gradual opening of economies worldwide against rising cases of the Delta variant of Covid-19.
At the end of the day's trade, the S&P BSE Sensex closed at 55,629.49, down by 162.78 points or 0.29 per cent from its previous close.
Similarly, the NSE Nifty50 closed lower by 45.75 points or 0.28 per cent to 16,568.85 from its previous close.
"Nifty has formed a bearish 'dark cloud cover' on daily charts. Even though it made a new high in the morning, the fact that contrary to the regional markets, it failed to sustain the gains and ended in the negative, raising some concerns," said HDFC Securities' Retail Research Head, Deepak Jasani.
"The broader market continued to show negative advance decline ratio for the fourth consecutive session. Nifty may find it difficult to breach today's high of 16,702 for the next 1-2 sessions," Jasani said.
Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services, said, "Succumbing to profit booking, the Indian market gave away its gains. Bleeding banking, realty and metal stocks dragged while midcaps provided some relief but the broad trend was weak.
"European markets traded cautiously as Euro zone inflation accelerated to 2.2 per cent in July, beating ECB estimates of 2 per cent owing to a spike in energy prices. The markets are awaiting the US Fed meeting minutes to provide some direction on future policy, which is expected to showcase its current accommodative policy in line with the latest policy statement."
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