Nifty trades flat with positive bias, Adani Ent top gainer: Market snippet

Investing.com -- Indian market indices made a flat opening and traded flat in Monday’s intraday session, tracking negative cues from Asian peers, while heavyweight players including Adani Enterprises (NS:ADEL) and Cipla (NS:CIPL) extended support.

Benchmark indices Nifty50 traded flat with a positive bias at 18,683.9 levels, while Sensex dipped 1.5 points to 62,977.9 levels at IST 12:10 (GMT 06:40). The market fear barometer India VIX jumped 6.14% to 11.92 levels during the session.

Sectoral indices listed under the Nifty umbrella traded mixed, while gains led by Nifty Pharma and Nifty Healthcare extended support, while Nifty Auto contributed to the vigor. Nifty Bank was flat.

Nifty PSU Bank, on the other hand, retreated the most on the sectoral pack, dipping 0.5% at the time of writing.

Broader market indices NIFTY Smallcap 100 and NIFTY Midcap 100 outperformed the headlines, rising up to 0.5% each on Monday.

On the Nifty50 pack, state-owned behemoths NTPC (NS:NTPC), Coal India (NS:COAL), PowerGrid Corporation (NS:PGRD) and Bharat Petroleum (NS:BPCL) exerted pressure.

The brokerage stock ICICI Securities (NS:ICCI) jumped 15% and hit a new 52-week high on Monday following announcements of the parent firm ICICI Bank (NS:ICBK) considering a proposal to delist the company in a Board meeting this week.

On the flip side, shares of India’s leading cement producer Shree Cement (NS:SHCM) cracked 10% and hit a fresh multi-month low during the session after a report of the company evading INR 23 billion (INR 1 = $0.012) in taxes, claiming to be the biggest tax evasion to date.