Domestic stock markets moved in a narrow range on Tuesday amid weakness in Asian peers as investors turned cautious ahead of Budget announcements due later this week.
The Sensex fell as much as 124 points to hit 35,532 on the downside, while the Nifty dipped to 10,616, down 44 points from the previous close.
The benchmark indices entered the positive zone briefly during Tuesday's session, but failed to sustain those gains as advances in pharma, state-run banking and media stocks were offset by weakness in energy and IT stocks.
Here are 10 things to know:The Sensex moved within a range of 186 points during the session, between 35,532 and 35,718.At 12:06 pm, the Sensex traded 87 points - or 0.3 per cent lower - at 35,569.
At that time, the 50-scrip index was down 17 points at 10,643.Top laggards on the 50-scrip index were Indiabulls Housing Finance, Eicher Motors, Yes Bank, Infosys and Reliance Industries, trading between 1.4 per cent and 2.6 per cent lower.On the other hand, top advancers included Adani Ports, Sun Pharma, Bharti Infratel and Zee, trading between 2.2 per cent and 4.5 per cent higher.Zee Entertainment Enterprises shares jumped as much as 4.1 per cent to hit an intraday high of Rs 388.50 apiece on the NSE by afternoon, gaining more ground after the sharp losses last week.A news report had alleged last week that Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd's promoter Essel Group may figure in a probe linked to demonetisation-led deposits of Rs 3,000 crore.
Zee, which denied any involvement with the large cash deposit transactions, said promoter stake sale and Essel Group's stressed asset sale plans are still on track.Cautious prevailed among investors ahead of the budget presentation due on February 1."There is definitely some caution and a high-pitched election coming up, markets are likely to be very volatile in the next 3-4 months," news agency Reuters quoted Naveen Kulkarni, head of research, Reliance Securities, as saying.
"NSE target for December is 12,000."Asian shares traded lower as investors showed concerns after the prospects of a long-awaited China-US trade deal suffered another blow after the United States levelled sweeping criminal charges against China's telecom giant Huawei.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.06 per cent.On Monday, the Sensex and Nifty had ended around 1 per cent lower amid sharp losses in financial stocks.(With agency inputs) Find latest news, updates and videos on Budget 2019, Budget expectations, tax and policy announcements here.
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