Business

Heavyweights Reliance Industries, ITC, Infosys and L&T lost between 1.3 per cent and 2.3 per cent.

The benchmarks lost 0.4 per cent on expected profit booking on Dalal Street on Thursday.

There have been reports that Infosys is close to acquiring Thomson Reuters' healthcare business for $ 700 to 750 mn

The first quarter was a disappointment with higher wages and currency fluctuations hurting margins.

The shares of Maruti Suzuki India dropped by over 4.32 per cent on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

CBI conducted raids on the premises of the Maran brothers in Delhi and Chennai.

SBI said it was not in favour of hiking lending rates despite the RBI's 12th consecutive rate increase last month.

Financials dented the market for second straight session, especially SBI on Wednesday.

The market snapped four-day losing streak on Tuesday after rallying 500 points intra-day, aided by strong global support.

S&P downgraded its rating on Italy by one notch to A/A-1 and kept its outlook on negative.

Overall inflation, as measured by the Wholesale Price Index (WPI), stood at 9.22 per cent in July.

The 30-share BSE Sensex dropped 365.23 points, to close at 16,501.74.

The Nikkei was down 1.1 per cent at 8,960.59, giving back most of the previous day's gains.

Japan's Nikkei 225 index rose 1.2 per cent to 8,956.83 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng index gained 2.1 per cent.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is most likely to outline gradualist measures to help the US economy.

Food inflation declined to 9.03 per cent for the week ended Aug 6.