Stock market closing: Indian benchmark indices, Sensex and Nifty 50, ended Monday's session (May 18) in green territory.

The BSE Sensex, after hitting an intraday high of 75,466.60, ended the session at 75,315.04, up 77.05 points or 0.10 per cent.

The NSE Nifty50 settled at 23,649.95, up 6.45 points or 0.03 per cent. During the day Nifty50 swung between 23,695.65 and 23,317.10. Sensex and Nifty opened in red today. The BSE Sensex started at 74,807.97, while the Nifty 50 opened at 23,482.20.

Analysts said the market could remain under corrective pressure if the Nifty fails to reclaim the 23,800-24,000 range. A continued inability to breach this zone may drag the index towards key support levels of 23,200-23,000.

Foreign investors have also continued reducing exposure to Indian equities, withdrawing Rs 27,048 crore from the market so far this month, signalling caution amid evolving global macroeconomic trends and geopolitical tensions.

With these latest outflows, cumulative Foreign Portfolio Investor (FPI) withdrawals from Indian equities in 2026 have risen to Rs 2.2 lakh crore, exceeding the total net outflow of Rs 1.66 lakh crore recorded during the entirety of 2025, according to NSDL data.

What happened with the markets today?

• Nifty closes flat near 23650 mark recovers over 300 points from day low
• Top performer -- Tech mahindra and Infosys
• Top loser -- Tata Steel and Power grid
• Nifty Bank closes in red for 2nd consecutive session declines over 0.3 per cent
• SBI and Canara bank were the worst performers
• Nifty Bank recovers 700 points from day low
• Nifty Midcap closes flat
• Nifty Midcap recovers over 1000 points from day low
• Nifty Smallcap closes in red for 2nd consecutive session falls over 1 per cent mainly dragged by Amber Enterprise and KEC
• Nifty Smallcap recovers ~2 per cent from day low

Key highlights

• All sectoral indices close in red, except for Nifty IT and Pharma,
• Nifty IT top sectoral gainer advances around 2.3 per cent, gains for 2nd consecutive session, all the constituents close in green, Persistent and Coforge are the top gainers
• Nifty Pharma gains closes 0.5 per cent, gains for 4th consecutive session, Gland Pharma and IPCA Laboratories led the gains
• Nifty FMCG snaps the 3 days gaining streak ,lose close to 0.3 per cent, mainly dragged by Dabur and Godrej Consumer
• Nifty Realty loses around 0.6 per cent for 2nd consecutive session , Brigade and Anant Raj dragged the index
• Nifty Energy loses around 0.7 per cent, dragged by SJVN and CG Power and Industrial Solutions
• Nifty Metal loses for 2nd consecutive session, loses around 1 per cent, Tata Steel and Lloyds Metals And Energy are the top losers
• Nifty Auto snaps the two day gaining streak, declines around 1.7 per cent, TVS Motor and UNO Minda are the top losers
• Nifty PSU bank top sectoral loser loses for 2nd consecutive session , declines nearly 2 per cent
• All constituents close in red, Bank of India and SBI dragged the index