Equity benchmark indices give up intra-day gains to end lower for third day straight

Mumbai: Equity benchmark indices pared their intra-day gains and ended lower on Thursday, pulled down by index majors ITC and State Bank of India after their fourth quarter earnings failed to cheer investors.

After trading in the green for most part of the day, the 30-share BSE Sensex declined 128.90 points or 0.21 per cent to settle at 61,431.74. During the day, it hit a high of 61,955.90 and a low of 61,349.34.

The NSE Nifty fell 51.80 points or 0.28 per cent to end at 18,129.95.

Among the Sensex firms, ITC, SBI, Titan, Power Grid, Larsen & Toubro, Tata Motors, Hindustan Unilever and UltraTech Cement were the major laggards. Shares of ITC fell 2 per cent even as the company reported a 22.66 per cent rise in consolidated net profit at Rs 5,225.02 crore in the fourth quarter ended March 2023.

SBI declined 1.77 per cent despite the country’s largest bank reporting an 83 per cent jump in net profit at Rs 16,694.51 crore for the fourth quarter of 2022-23 fiscal on higher interest income and low provisioning.

Bajaj Finance, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Bharti Airtel, ICICI Bank, Asian Paints, HCL Technologies, HDFC and HDFC Bank were among the biggest gainers.

The rupee fell 25 paise to close at 82.62 against the US currency on Thursday, weighed down by a strong greenback in the overseas market and a negative trend in domestic

equities.