India shares lower at close of trade; Nifty 50 down 0.40%

India equities were lower at the close on Monday, as losses in the Oil & Gas, Metals and Power sectors propelled shares lower.

At the close in NSE, the Nifty 50 fell 0.40%, while the BSE Sensex 30 index fell 0.26%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the Nifty 50 were Wipro Ltd (NS:WIPR), which rose 1.48% or 8.35 points to trade at 570.80 at the close. Shree Cements Ltd. (NS:SHCM) added 1.35% or 328.80 points to end at 24678.35 and Infosys Ltd (NS:INFY) was up 1.32% or 22.55 points to 1729.50 in late trade.

Biggest losers included Coal India Ltd (NS:COAL), which lost 3.65% or 6.10 points to trade at 161.20 in late trade. Hindalco Industries Ltd. (NS:HALC) declined 3.38% or 17.90 points to end at 511.70 and UPL Ltd (NS:UPLL) shed 2.87% or 20.80 points to 704.15.

The top performers on the BSE Sensex 30 were Wipro Ltd (BO:WIPR) which rose 1.45% to 570.65, Infosys Ltd (BO:INFY) which was up 1.38% to settle at 1730.60 and Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd (BO:PGRD) which gained 1.17% to close at 198.10.

The worst performers were Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (BO:SUN) which was down 2.39% to 842.95 in late trade, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. (BO:TCS) which lost 1.96% to settle at 3720.25 and ITC Ltd (BO:ITC) which was down 1.69% to 218.10 at the close.

Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 1607 to 235 and 26 ended unchanged; on the Bombay Stock Exchange, 2705 fell and 685 advanced, while 126 ended unchanged on the India National Stock Exchange.

The India VIX, which measures the implied volatility of Nifty 50 options, was up 3.33% to 22.9025.

In commodities trading, Gold Futures for April delivery was down 0.02% or 0.40 to $1899.40 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in April fell 0.30% or 0.27 to hit $89.94 a barrel, while the May Brent oil contract fell 0.20% or 0.18 to trade at $91.21 a barrel.

USD/INR was down 0.15% to 74.572, while EUR/INR rose 0.23% to 84.7300.

The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.22% at 95.810.