Markets ended lower this Thursday as investors preferred to book profits in sectors such as metal, banks and real-estate after benchmark indices surged to three-month high earlier this week.
The Sensex ended down 51 points at 19,939. Nifty slipped 19 points at 6,050.
Meanwhile, global risk appetite was positive after yet another record closing by the US markets, however, gains were capped on concerns over spike in China’s inflation which may prevent country’s central bank from aggressive monetary policy easing.
Asian markets traded mixed with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng falling 0.1% to 23,211.
Shanghai Composite and Nikkei shed 0.6% each.
Foreign institutional investors bought shares worth a net Rs 976.99 crore on Wednesday as per provisional data from the stock exchanges.
The Central Statistics Office will issue data on industrial production for March 2013 tomorrow.
The rupee fell by 10 paise to 54.26 per dollar today following demand for the US currency from importers despite its weakness overseas.
BSE IT index jumped 0.8% to 6,059 after upbeat results posted by Nasdaq-listed Cognizant improved growth prospects of Indian software makers as they get majority of business from clients in US and Europe.
Power, PSU and FMCG advanced as well. Shares of most of the public sector undertaking banks were trading higher by up to 5%, recouping their early morning losses, after Punjab National Bank and Union Bank of India have seen their assets quality improvement on sequential
On the other hand, the healthcare index slipped 1.6% to 8,738.
Oil & gas, metal and consumer durables also dipped in trades - down around half a per cent each.
SBI added 1.8% at Rs 2294. From the IT space, TCS and Wipro have added 1-1.5% each. Hindalco, NTPC and Larsen & Toubro added nearly 1% each as well.
Magindra & Mahindra added 0.2% after the company announced the launch of the 'Bolero Maxi Truck Plus' on Tuesday.
ICICI Bank has started offering Money2India mobile application across smart phones to help Non-Resident Indians track their money transfers to India -- anytime, anywhere, said a press release issued by the bank on Thursday. The stock was down half a per cent at Rs 1,153.
Union Bank of India surged 1.5% to Rs 243 on reporting a better-than-expected net profit at Rs 789 crore (Rs 7.89 billion) for the quarter ended March 31, 2013 (Q4) on back of strong growth recorded by retail banking operations.
Analyst on an average had expected profit of Rs 618 crore from the state-owned bank.
The bank had profit of Rs 773 crore in year ago quarter. Shares of Union Bank added 3.5% to Rs 248.
Viceroy Hotels surged 20% after the company engaged in hotels business announced the sell of company’s Chennai project to Ceebros Hotels for Rs 480 crore.
Aptech rallied 16% after information technology (IT) training services provider announced that its board will meet to consider buyback of the company’s equity shares.
BSE market breadth was negative. Out of 2568 stocks traded, 1322 shares declined while 1079 shares advanced in trades.
