In volatile trade, the benchmark Sensex on Monday fell about 29 points as participants adopted a cautious stance ahead of the RBI policy review on Tuesday.
Profit-booking and a weakening rupee that depreciated 47 paise against the dollar to 61.58 intra-day also weighed on the stock market sentiment, equity brokers said.
The BSE Sensex after commencing on a higher note, continued to rise and touched intra-day high of 26,715.77.
However, off-loading of positions by participants and profit-booking in select counters pushed it back to close at 26,597.11, down 29.21 points, or 0.11 per cent. Intra-day, it had touched the day’s low of 26,518.01.
The Sensex gained 157.96 points on Friday after S&P raised India’s outlook to stable from negative.
In the 30-share Sensex on Monday, 21 closed with losses, while nine others ended higher. Interest rate sensitive stocks such as ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, HDFC and Axis Bank edged lower ahead of RBI policy outcome.
On similar lines, the 50-share NSE index Nifty after moving both ways, ended 9.95 points, or 0.12 per cent down at 7,958.90. It shuttled between 7,991.75 and 7,934.70 intra-days.
Sentiments turned weak as funds and investors were seen trimming their positions ahead of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) monetary policy review on Tuesday.
The weakness in rupee against US dollar helped IT stocks to close in positive zone. Shares of TCS surged 3.17 per cent, Wipro up 1.18 per cent and Infosys gained 1.90 per cent.
Overall trading was tepid in this holiday-shortened week ahead as markets will remain closed on Thursday and Friday for Mahatma Gandhi Jayanthi and Dussehra respectively.
Major losers, which dragged down the indices, were Bajaj Auto, Coal India, Dr Reddy, Hero Moto, Maruti Suzuki, ONGC, Sesa Sterlite, Tata Motors, Tata Power and Tata Steel.
Sectorwise, the BSE Metal sector index suffered the most by plunging 1.11 per cent, followed by FMCG index (0.92 per cent), Banking index (0.91 per cent), Auto index (0.44 per cent), Oil & Gas (0.37 per cent), Realty index (0.25 per cent) and Capital Goods index (0.24 per cent).
Asian stocks ended mixed. European markets were weak in early trade as a measure of euro-area economic confidence declined.
Meanwhile, provisional data showed that Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) sold shares worth a net Rs 1,133.64 crore last Friday.
