On Monday, the BSE Sensex closed at 17,103, down 110 points (0.6 per cent). The NSE Nifty ended the day at 5,197, down 30 points (0.6 per cent).
“The bounceback in USD-INR rates didn’t augur well for equity markets which succumbed to selling pressure and closed near the low of the day. Presidential polls, ongoing results season and finally the RBI meet towards the end of July 2012 will be dominating the market movements and stock prices for the rest of this month,” said Mr Milan Bavishi, Head of Research, Inventure Growth & Securities.
The markets opened positive but lost momentum during the day. The decline in the markets was led by stocks in the IT, metal and realty stocks. On the BSE, the IT index was down 2.3 per cent, metal index was down 1.9 per cent and realty index was down 1.6 per cent.
Among the BSE Sensex stocks, the top five gainers was Bharti Airtel (up 3.9 per cent), Dr Reddy's Lab (1.8 per cent), Maruti (1.6 per cent), CIPLA (1.2 per cent) and ONGC (0.7 per cent). The top five laggards were Tata Steel (down 3.9 per cent), TCS (3.2 per cent), Jindal Steel (2.7 per cent), Tata Motors (2.6 per cent) and Infosys (2.5 per cent).