Nifty slides on profit booking at higher levels

Mumbai, Feb 21 (IANS) After making a fresh high, Nifty erased its gains in the last hour and closed with a loss of 142 points at 22,055 levels on Wednesday, said Siddhartha Khemka, Head of Retail Research at Motilal Oswal Financial Services.

While the Nifty closed at 22,055.05, down 0.64 per cent, the Sensex ended lower by 434.31 points or 0.59 per cent at 72,623.09.

Barring metals, PSU bank, and realty, all sectors ended in red. The realty sector was in the limelight amid strong demand and rising prices.

The markets turned cautious ahead of the release of US Fed meeting minutes and key earnings from chip-maker giant Nvidia, Khemka said.

Investors will look out for any cues about the potential trajectory of US interest rates from the meeting minutes.

Further, after gaining for six consecutive days, Nifty saw some profit booking at higher levels, he said.

However, the overall structure remains positively supported by strong buying by Domestic Institutional Investors (DIIs). Some of the other key events to watch out for are Europe inflation data, RBI meeting minutes and US’ existing home sales data.

Vaibhav Vidwani, Research Analyst at Bonanza Portfolio, said that at close on Wednesday, Nifty Realty and Nifty PSU Bank were the sectors which outperform, up by 2 per cent and 0.60 per cent, respectively.

On the Nifty, Tata Steel, SBI, JSW Steel, Tata Consumer Products, and IndusInd Bank were the top gainers, while the biggest losses were BPCL, Coal India, Hero MotoCorp, Power Grid Corp, and NTPC.

–IANS

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