The Sensex and the Nifty ended the session marginally in the red owing to weak European cues.
Caution also prevailed ahead of the expiry of monthly derivatives contracts on Thursday.
The 30-share BSE index Sensex fell 69.06 points or 0.24 per cent at 28,192.02 and the 50-share NSE index Nifty was down 20 points or 0.23 per cent at 8,550.90.
Among BSE sectoral indices, IT index fell the most by 1.03 per cent, followed by consumer durables 0.89 per cent, TECk 0.87 per cent and banking 0.85 per cent. On the other hand, infrastructure index was up 0.38 per cent, followed by metal 0.2 per cent, auto 0.07 per cent and power 0.04 per cent.
Major Sensex gainers were NTPC 3.23%, Hindalco 3.18%, GAIL 1.71%, SSLT 1.41% and M&M 1.27%, while the top five losers were BHEL 3.62%, ICICI Bank 1.55%, Reliance 1.41%, Wipro 1.33% and SBIN 1.31%.
Foreign funds seem to be chasing Chinese stocks. Shanghai Comp up 7% last week and gained 89% in the last 12 months.
— lokeshwarri sk (@lokeshwarri)
March 23, 2015
Early trade
The 30-share index, which had lost 475.30 points in previous three sessions, rose 108.64 points or 0.38 per cent to 28,369.72 in early trade with all sectoral indices, led by power, healthcare, oil & gas and capital goods, trading in positive zone with gains up to 0.68 per cent.
Similarly, the National Stock Exchange index Nifty regained the 8,600-mark by gaining 37.45 points or 0.43 per cent to 8,608.35 in early trade.
Brokers said emergence of buying by investors after remaining sellers in the past few sessions and a firm trend in other Asian markets, tracking week-end rallies in the US and European markets, influenced the sentiment in early trade.
Global markets
Caution about Greece ahead of a meeting between its prime minister and Germany’s Angela Merkel prompted a nervy start to the week for European markets on Monday.
Shares and currencies in Asia, in contrast, had rallied on easy monetary policy hopes and another tick down in oil prices.
The benchmark FTSEurofirst share index dropped 0.6 per cent, pulling back from a seven-year high, while the euro dipped back to $1.0780 as southern euro zone bonds also saw some selling despite the ECB’s ongoing bond buying programme.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan added about 0.5 per cent as Chinese shares rallied to a new seven-year high on hopes of more support measures for the ailing property sector.
Japan’s Nikkei ended 1 per cent higher at 19,754.36, refreshing a 15-year high as it closed in on 20,000.
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