The domestic equity barometers traded with minor cuts in early trade. The Nifty traded below the 18,550 mark. Banks, oil & gas and realty shares advanced while IT, pharma and healthcare stocks lagged behind. 

At 09:24 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was down 70.77 points or 0.11% to 62,339.91. The Nifty 50 index lost 15.75 points or 0.08% to 18,544.75. 

SBI Life down 1.23%, Power Grid Corp down 1.13%, Kotak Mahindra Bank down 1.07%, HDFC Life down 0.95% and TCS down 0.80% were the top index losers. 

Eicher Motors up 1.35%, Larsen & Toubro up 1.22%, Mahindra & Mahindra up 0.82%, Adani Ports up 0.70% and Apollo Hospitals up 0.67% outperformed. 

In the broader market, the S&P BSE Mid-Cap index gained 0.21% while the S&P BSE Small-Cap index advanced 0.31%. 

The market breadth was strong. On the BSE, 1705 shares rose and 820 shares fell. A total of 124 shares were unchanged. On the political front, various exit polls on Monday predicted a big majority for the BJP in Gujarat and a dead heat in Himachal Pradesh where most pollsters gave an edge to the ruling party over the Congress. The counting of votes in both states will take place today, 8 December 2022. Elections for the Himachal Pradesh assembly took place on 12 November, while polling in Gujarat happened in two phases on 1 and 5 December. 

HCL Technologies shed 0.18%. The company announced a new collaboration with Intel Corporation and Mavenir to develop and provide scalable private 5G network solutions for communication service providers (CSP) and broader cross-vertical enterprises. 

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) rose 0.50%. ONGC has signed a MoU with global petroleum giant Shell for cooperation in carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) studies. The MoU is aimed at developing carbon capture, utilisation and storage, or CCUS/carbon capture and storage (CCS) as an emissions mitigation tool for combating climate change and injecting carbon dioxide (CO2) for geological storage as well as enhanced oil production from mature fields of ONGC. 

Macrotech Developers advanced 1.41%. The company has fixed QIP offer floor price of Rs 1,022.75 per share. The relevant date for the purpose of the offer is fixed as 7 December 2022.