Mumbai For the second straight day, Wednesday’s Indian stock market was dominated by stock-specific trading activity, with both benchmark indexes staying inside a small range.

Subdued trade activity resulted from investors exercising prudence ahead of Thursday, May 1, Maharashtra Day, a trading holiday.

At 80,371, the Sensex began the day up around 80 points, but it spent the most of the day holding inside a narrow range. The index rose 237 points to a peak of 80,526 in the last half hour of trade.

But it soon gave up these gains and fell precipitously, falling 647 points from its intra-day high to a low of 79,879 today. In the end, the Sensex finished 46 points down at 80,024.

The Nifty index moved in a range of around 200 points, following a similar trend. Prior to falling to a low of 24,199, it peaked at 24,396. At 24,334, the Nifty ended the day with a very little two-point decline.

As traders choose to stay out of the market ahead of the vacation, the Nifty is still consolidating inside a small range, according to Rupak De of LKP Securities.

Following the release of their Q4 earnings, Bajaj Finance and Bajaj Finserv both fell more than 5%, making them among of the Sensex’s largest losers.

Analysts pointed out that Bajaj Finance’s prospects for future expansion were unimpressive. Tata Motors and SBI were two other noteworthy decliners, both of which had losses of around 3%.

Significant losses were also experienced by Asian Paints, Tata Steel, and UltraTech Cement on the 30-share index.

On the plus side, Maruti Suzuki India had a robust surge, increasing by over 3%. Power Grid Corporation, Sun Pharma, and Bharti Airtel all reported 1-2 percent increases.

With the BSE MidCap index dropping 1% and the SmallCap index plunging 2%, the overall market likewise finished worse.

Sector-wise, the Realty index increased by more than 1%, while the BSE Power and Capital Goods indexes both had declines of more than 1%.

“India’s economic resilience and the declining value of the US dollar have made the country appealing to international investors,” said V.K. Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

Nevertheless, investors should proceed with caution. Certain equities have had a notable increase after a profitable rise. Now is a good moment to increase the amount of cash in the portfolio and register partial gains,” he said.