The Indian equity benchmarks staged a strong recovery in noon deals on the back of buying in index heavyweights like Tata Consultancy Services, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, State Bank of India and Maruti Suzuki. The Sensex recovered as much as 759 points from the day's lowest level and Nifty 50 index moved above its important psychological level of 17,250 after hitting an intraday low of 17,064.
As of 1:00 pm, the Sensex was down 101 points at 58,090 and Nifty 50 index declined 44 points to 17,271.
"On technical grounds, Nifty has an immediate support at 17,070. Any move below the same may extend the fall toward 16,940-16,850 mark. On the flip side 17,300-17,380 will act as strong resistance levels. It’s a stock specific market, trade calls with strict stop loss," brokerage firm Nirmal Bang said.
European markets were trading with a negative bias after reports suggested that in fresh escalation Russia bombed the capital city of Ukraine Kyiv. Germany's DAX fell 0.2 per cent, France's CAC40 index declined 0.8 per cent and Britain's FTSE100 fell 0.6 per cent.
Back home, banking shares staged a strong bounce back as the measure of 12 banking shares on the National Stock Exchange - Nifty Bank index surged as much as 797 points from the day's lowest level. IT, Financial Services, and Private Bank indices also turned flat.
Mid- and small-cap shares were facing selling pressure as Nifty Midcap 100 index fell 0.9 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index was down 0.3 per cent.
Tata Motors was top Nifty loser, the stock fell nearly 4 per cent to Rs 396. Hero MotoCorp, Tata Consumer Products, Asian Paints, ITC, Divi's Labs, Apollo Hospitals, UPL and Hindalco also fell between 1-3 per cent.
On the flipside, Axis Bank, TCS, Eicher Motors, HDFC Life, ICICI Bank, Coal India, Power Grid, and State Bank of India were among the gainers
The overall market breadth was negative as 2,078 shares were declining while 1,380 were advancing on the BSE.
