Benchmark indices recovered most of their intra-day losses and closed marginally lower on Tuesday led by buying in market heavyweights Reliance Industries and Tata Consultancy Services.
Sensex managed to trim most of its early losses and ended 103.90 points lower at 61,702.29. During the day, the 30-stock index tumbled 703.51 points or 1.13 per cent to 61,102.68. Nifty dipped 35.15 points or 0.19 per cent to end at 18,385.30.
Sensex losers
Tata Motors (1.75%), Hindustan Unilever (1.60%), Bharti Airtel (1.46%), Mahindra & Mahindra (1.29%) and NTPC (1.02%) were among the top losers.
Sensex gainers
Tata Consultancy Services (1.29%), Reliance Industries (0.81%), UltraTech Cement (0.50%), IndusInd Bank (0.43%), Axis Bank (0.41%) and ICICI Bank (0.36%) closed in the green.
Of 30 Sensex stocks, 21 ended in the red.
Market cap of BSE-listed firms settled at Rs 287.39 lakh crore. BSE mid cap and small cap indices fell 69 points and 5 points, respectively.
Market breadth was negative with 1,672 shares closing higher against 1850 stocks falling on BSE. 135 shares were unchanged.
Shrikant Chouhan, Head of Equity Research (Retail), Kotak Securities said, “Technically, after early morning sharp intraday selloff, the index took support near 18,200 and recovered from the day’s low level. Currently, the market is witnessing a non-directional activity and perhaps traders are waiting for either side to breakout. For bulls, 18,450 would be the important breakout level to watch. And if the market manages to trade above the same, then we can expect a quick uptrend rally towards 18550-18600. On the flip side, trading below 18200 may increase further weakness up to 18100-18050.”
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Auto, metal and capital goods shares were the top sectoral losers with their BSE indices falling 227 pts, 104 pts and 138 points, respectively. IT shares were the top gainers with the BSE IT index rising 31 points to 28,664.
Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services said,”The Bank of Japan shocked the global markets in a totally unexpected move by raising the upper band limit for the 10 yr yield to 50 bps, which is seen as a step towards a hawkish policy shift. This has aggravated the sell-off in the global market, which was already risk-averse due to mounting recessionary fears following the Fed’s comment. In this backdrop, the US GDP numbers expected on Thursday will provide a picture of the strength of the US economy.”
Meanwhile, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold shares worth a net Rs 538.10 crore on Monday, according to exchange data.
Rupee fell 13 paise to close at 82.75 against the US dollar. The local unit opened weak at 82.69 against the greenback and witnessed an intra-day high of 82.69 and a low of 82.88 in today’s session.
Previous session
Benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty ended nearly 1 per cent higher on Monday led by heavy buying in banking, oil and FMCG shares after two sessions of losses. Sensex rose 468.38 points to end at 61,806.19. During the day, the index advanced 507.11 points or 0.82 per cent to a high of 61,844.92. Nifty climbed 151.45 points or 0.83 per cent to end at 18,420.45.
Global markets
Elsewhere in Asia, equity markets in Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai and Hong Kong closed lower. Equity exchanges in Europe were trading in the negative territory in mid-session deals. The US markets had ended lower on Monday. International oil benchmark Brent crude inched up 0.65 per cent to $80.32 per barrel.