Mkts end in red, Hero Honda down 6 pc

Mumbai: The markets were sluggish throughout the day witnessing choppy trades.

The earnings season started on Tuesday with Hero Honda declaring its first quarter results, which were below the market expectations.

The Sensex closed at 10,614.35 down 69.95 points and the Nifty closed at 3116 down 26 points.

The BSE Small Cap Index closed at 5,258.66, up 24 points.

The BSE Midcap Index ended at 4,350.24, up 9 points.

Apart from the health care index, all the BSE sectoral indices closed in red. Stocks from auto, banking and metal sector were among the major laggards.

The Auto index closed at 4,619.20 down 2.3 per cent. Hero Honda, Bharat Forge, Tata Motors, Cummins, MICO, Tube Investment closed lower.

The BSE Metal Index lost 1.8 per cent at 8,242.47. SAIL, Tata Steel, Hind Zinc, Hindalco, Welspun Guj and JSW Steel witnessed selling pressure.

The BSE Bankex was down 0.8 per cent at 4,319.89. Allahabad Bank, HDFC Bank, Oriental Bank, ICICI Bank and Bank of Baroda were among the losers.

The BSE IT Index was down 0.6 per cent at 3,798.12. TCS, HCL Tech, Mphasis BFL, HCL Info, Infosys and Moser Baer

moved down.

The BSE FMCG Index was down 0.4 per cent at 1,940.57. Tata Tea, HLL, Colgate, Britannia, P&G and Nestle closed in red.

The BSE Capital Goods Index down 0.11 per cent at 6,925.22. Lakshmi Machine, Aban LoydChiles, Ingersoll Rand, BEML, Gammon India closed lower.

The BSE Consumer Durables Index lost 0.17 per cent at 2,776.61. BPL, Titan Industries and Su-Raj Diamonds.

The BSE Oil and Gas Index closed flat at 5,258.161.

The BSE Health care index was up 1 per cent at 3,143.94. Nicholas Piramal, Aurobindo Pharm, Cipla, Matrix Lab and Ipca Labs were among the gainers.

The NSE cash turnover was at Rs 4874.33 crore and the NSE F&O turnover was at Rs 18725.75 crore.

The BSE cash turnover was Rs 2407.39 crore. Total market wide turnover was at Rs 26007.47 crore.