The BSE benchmark Sensex on Thursday fell from over three-month high by losing 51 points due to profit-booking in recent outperformers such as RIL, Sun Pharma and HDFC Bank ahead of IIP data amid a weak global trend.
After a three-day of sharp upsurge, the Sensex on Thursday declined by 51.14 points, or 0.26 per cent, to close at 19,939.04. The gauge had hit the crucial 20,000 level many times during the day.
The index had climbed to three-month high by surging 415 points in the previous three sessions.
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Profit-booking in recent gainers such as Reliance Industries, Sun Pharma, Jindal Steel, Maruti Suzuki and Sterlite Industries pulled the Sensex down.
Among the 30-BSE index components, 17 stocks fell. Tata Power remained unchanged.
Similarly, the wide-based National Stock Exchange index fell by 19.15 points, or 0.32 per cent, to 6,050.15.
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MCX Stock Exchange (MCX-SX) flagship index SX40 fell 2.7 points, or 0.02 per cent, to close at points 11,794.04 on Thursday.
Brokers said investors offloaded some of the recent gainers to book profits ahead the release of industrial data for March on Friday and a weakening trend in Asian and European stock markets.
They said the falling trend was capped following gains in IT stocks after the US-based Cognizant posted 16.6 per cent rise in net profit for the January-March quarter.
Bucking the trend, Infosys rose by 0.40 per cent to Rs 2,359.90, Tata Consultancy Services by 1.52 per cent to Rs 1,498.85, Wipro by 0.80 per cent to Rs 354.95 and HCL Technologies by 2.61 per cent to Rs 769.95. The BSE IT index rose by 0.87 per cent to 6,059.54.
The healthcare index suffered the most by losing 1.62 per cent to 8,738.26 followed by metal index by 1.46 per cent to 8,804.54 and realty index by 1.10 per cent to 1,911.65.