Domestic equity benchmarks clocked their third day of losses in a row dragged by selling pressure in information technology and automobile heavyweights. Meanwhile, the losses were capped as capital goods, consumer durables, metal and oil & gas shares witnessed buying interest. The S&P BSE Sensex fell 38 points or 0.11 per cent to close at 35,867 and NSE Nifty 50 Index declined 14 points to shut shop at 10,792 as futures and option (F&O) or derivative contracts for the month of February expired today.
In intraday deals, the Sensex and Nifty rose as much as 0.5 and 0.6 per cent each respectively but erased gains in afternoon as traders squared off or rolled over their futures and options positions, analysts said.
Global stocks retreated for a third straight day on Thursday as investors reduced their optimism over US-Sino trade talks, while an early end to a US-North Korean summit in Vietnam and weak economic data out of China also hit sentiment.
Fifteen of 19 sector gauges compiled by BSE ended higher led by the S&P BSE Consumer Durables Index's 1.5 per cent gain. Capital goods, oil & gas, realty, utilities and energy indexes on the BSE also rose over one per cent each. On the other hand, S&P BSE Information Technology Index was top loser, down 1 per cent.
From the Nifty 50 basket of shares, Tata Consultancy Services was top loser, down 3.62 per cent at Rs 1,983.50. Eicher Motors, UltraTech Cement, Maruti Suzuki, Hero MotoCorp and Wipro were also among the laggards. On the flipside, ONGC was top gainer, up 5.4 per cent at Rs 150.50. Vedanta, Coal India, Bharat Petroleum, GAIL India and Indian Oil were also among the gainers.
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