Mumbai: The benchmark Sensex today retreated from a record and fell for the first time in four days weighed down by selling in power and oil shares as Prime Minister Narendra Modi allotted portfolios to his council of ministers.
Mixed global cues with downward bias amid offloading of positions by foreign funds in view of monthly equity derivatives expiry also impacted the market, a broker said.
The BSE 30-share barometer resumed slightly better, but fell back immediately and remained in negative for rest of the day to end at 24,549.51, a fall of 167.37 points or 0.68 per cent. In previous three days, it had gained 418.86 points, or 1.72 per cent, to end at record closing high of 24,716.88.
“Possibly, profit booking coupled with disappointment over the appointment of key ministries could have led to market decline. All indices were in red except IT, Metals and Healthcare,” said Sanjeev Zarbade, Vice President- Private Client Group Research, Kotak Securities.
The broad-based NSE 50-issue CNX Nifty also dropped 41.05 points, or 0.56 per cent, to end at 7,318.00.
A narrowing current account deficit at 1.7 per cent of GDP in FY’14 from 4.7 per cent in FY’13 was apparently ignored by market participants, said equity dealers.
Selling activity was seen picking up in mid and small cap stocks largely in line with overall trends, they added.
Renewed capital outflows too affected the market sentiment. Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold shares worth a net Rs 84.13 crore yesterday as per provisional data from the stock exchanges.
Gail India was the top loser from the Sensex pack with a fall of 7.56 per cent even as net profit rose year-on-year.
Besides Gail India, HDFC, RIL, SBI, ONGC, M&M, Tata Motors, TCS and BHEL also suffered losses while Infosys, L&T, HDFC Bank, Tata Steel and Hindalco attracted buying.
“With the derivatives expiry on Thursday markets are likely to be volatile. Even for initiating fresh shorts traders should wait for some pullback or consolidation to take place at higher levels,” said Jayant Manglik, President-retail distribution, Religare Securities.
Asian stocks ended narrowly mixed trend as indices in China, Hongkong, Singapore and South Korea eased by 0.08 per cent to 0.63 per cent while indices in Japan and Taiwan moved up by 0.21 per cent to 0.23 per cent.
European stocks were also trading mixed as indices in Germany and UK moved up by 0.40 per cent to 0.57 per cent while France CAC was quoted lower by 0.03 per cent.
Jignesh Chaudhary, Head of Research, Veracity Broking Services said: “Today local equities traded weak. Yesterday we saw indication of profit booking as FIIs were the net sellers in the market, with the decline of some blue chip companies.”
According to Nidhi Saraswat, Senior Research Analyst, Bonanza Portfolio, RBI’s monetary policy in first week of June and budget highlights from new government shall be major triggers for the market.
Overall, 21 scrips out of the 30-share Sensex pack ended lower while remaining nine finished higher. Other major losers were BHEL (5.30 per cent), M&M (2.90 per cent), Tata Power (2.71 per cent), SBI (2.50 per cent), ONGC (2.37 per cent), Coal India (1.92 per cent) and HDFC (1.68 per cent).
Tata Motors (1.55 per cent), Maruti Suzuki (1.47 per cent), Axis Bank (1.35 per cent), NTPC (1.28 per cent), Cipla (1.20 per cent), Reliance Industries (1.20 per cent) and TCS (1.08 per cent) also fell.
However, Tata Steel rose by 1.78 per cent, Hindalco 1.63 per cent, L&T 1.37 per cent and Infosys 1.29 per cent.
Among the S&P BSE sectoral indices, Power dropped by 2.14 per cent followed by Oil&Gas 1.92 per cent, Auto 1.31 per cent, Realty 0.90 per cent, Consumer Durables 0.62 per cent and Bankex 0.61 per cent.
Market breadth continued to show negative trend as 1,660 stocks ended lower, 1,292 stocks finished higher while 103 stocks ruled steady. The turnover dropped to Rs 4,150.47 crore from Rs 6,121.45 crore yesterday.
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