The benchmark Sensex on Wednesday slipped by around 97 points to its lowest level in a week on profit-booking in blue-chips like HDFC Bank, RIL, Wipro and Tata Motors, amid a weakening global trend.
After a tepid start, Sensex plunged 275.25 points intra-day on heavy selling but recouped some losses to end at 20,767.88, still down 97.09 points, or 0.47 per cent. This is the lowest closing for index since October 17 (20,415.51).
Brokers said selling in blue chips had picked up following disappointing quarter earnings by companies such as Cairn India, Dish TV, Exide Industries and Ramco Cements.
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The broad-based National Stock Exchange index Nifty fell by 24.45 points, or 0.39 per cent, to 6,178.35, after touching the day’s low of 6,116.60. Also, SX40 index, the flagship index of MCX-SX, closed at 12,338.82, down 64.34 points.
IT major Wipro fell by 4.41 per cent after the company’s sequential revenue growth continued to lag peers in the September quarter while TCS and Infosys fell on profit-taking.
HDFC Bank, RIL, Sun Pharma, Tata Motors and ONGC fell in 1-2 per cent range. However, ICICI Bank, SBI and L&T shot up.
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Globally, a weak trend in the Asian region and lower opening in Europe after China’s money-market rates surged, also had an adversed impact on the Indian market despite soft US jobs data quelling fears of sooner-than-expected tapering of the economic stimulus.
“It seems that the markets took the poor jobs data as a sign that it would negatively impact export driven industries tied to US importers as the Auto and IT sectors suffered falls,” said Raghu Kumar, co-founder of brokerage firm RKSV.
Sectorally, the BSE Realty sector index suffered the most by losing 1.46 per cent, followed by Power (1.28 per cent), IT (0.93 per cent) and Oil and Gas (0.87 per cent).
Trading sentiment dampened after India Ratings and Research said it expected the country’s GDP growth to remain sluggish at 4.9 per cent in the current financial year, due to a mix of domestic and external factors.