Sensex ends 75 points down amid volatility

Mumbai: It was a boring sort of a day on Dalal Street on Thursday, with benchmarks losing 0.4 per cent on expected profit booking after Wednesday's 400 point plus rally on the Sensex.

The 30-share BSE Sensex fell 74.47 points, to close at 16,883.92 and the 50-share NSE Nifty declined 21.55 points, to end at 5,077.85.

It seemed like the market had already discounted all positive news of the week including Infosys' better-than-expected outlook for FY12 and likely plan from Europe in November to stem debt crisis.

Now, it is waiting for the next triggers — earnings, inflation (that is expected tomorrow) or the RBI credit policy (on October 25) — to get direction either side.

Also, the fall in European markets added some pressure on Indian equities as well; France's CAC, Germany's DAX and Britain's FTSE dropped 1 per cent each.

Going forward, Jitendra Sriram, Head Equities, HSBC Asset Management Company said the markets would take cues from results.

"Yesterday we saw some kind of uptake in the market post Infosys results. I think the next round of results will be very critical for the market to form a base from here on if they want to reverse their direction," he said.

According to Dipan Mehta, Member, BSE & NSE, unless we don’t have a solution for two major problems - inflation and European debt crisis, the market should remain range bound and could breakdown if there is further bad news.

Capital goods, auto, oil & gas, FMCG, power and select metals & mining stocks saw profit booking today. However, the buying in banks and technology stocks has limited the downside very nicely.

Major largecaps like L&T, ITC, ONGC, HDFC, Bharti Airtel, NTPC, HUL, BHEL and Coal India lost between 1 per cent and 2 per cent.

Tata Motors, JSPL and Hindalco were biggest losers, falling 3-3.5 per cent. Maruti Suzuki tumbled 2.7 per cent due to labour problems at its Manesar plant.

Heavyweight Reliance Industries fell 0.3 per cent.

However, ICICI Bank was the star performer, gaining 2.2 per cent. Infosys, TCS, HDFC Bank, SBI and DLF were down 0.7-1 per cent. Tata Steel rose 1.6 per cent.

Total traded turnover was more than Rs 1.35 lakh crore. Market breadth was mixed; about 1410 shares advanced as against 1417 shares declined on BSE.