Sensex, Nifty Down Marginally In Cautious Trade

(RTTNews) - After an early setback and a subsequent recovery into positive territory, Indian shares retreated Thursday morning following a fresh round of selling at some frontline counters.

Investors are largely making cautious moves, assessing the impact of the Federal Reserve's rate hike move, and on concerns about the health of the banking industry after US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's comments that the regulators are not looking to provide any "blanket" deposit insurance to stabilise the US banking system, without working with law makers.

The benchmark BSE Sensex, which rose to 58,277.81 from a low of 57,838.85, is down 72.16 points or 0.12% at 18,142.43. The broader Nifty 50 index of the National Stock Exchange is down 17.75 points or 0.1% at 17,134.15.

Nestle, Axis Bank, Maruti Suzuki, Tata Motors and Larsen & Toubro are up 1 to 1.4%.

Bharti Airtel is gaining nearly 1%, while Bajaj Finance, IndusInd Bank, Mahindra & Mahindra, ICICI Bank, Hind Unilever and Sun Pharmceuticals are up 0.5 to 0.8%.

Asian Paints is down 1.6%. HCL Technologies is down 1.1%, while Infosys, Wipro and Reliance Industries are lower by 0.8 to 1%.

Hindalco is gaining about 1.7%. Adani Ports, NTPC, HDFC Life, Divi's Laboratories and Cipla are modestly higher.

Hero Motocorp is advancing 0.6%. The automaker announced that it will hike prices of some of its variants effective from April 1.

Vedanta shares are down more than 5% after reports Anil Agarwal is weighing a stake sale in the company as a last-resort option and is studying the possibility of selling less than 5% of the company.

Man Industries shares are up more than 8% after the company said it has started production at its new plant at Anjar, Gujarat.