The Sensex edged lower on Tuesday as investors booked profits in recent gainers, but posted its biggest monthly gain since March 2016 after the government announced a plan last week to inject capital into state-run lenders.

The 30-share BSE index Sensex closed down by 53.03 points or 0.16 per cent at 33,213.13, but gained 6.2 percent for the month, its biggest such gain since March 2016.

The 50-share NSE index Nifty ended lower by 28.35 points or 0.27 per cent at 10,335.30. It gained 5.6 per cent for the month, its biggest monthly gain in three.

Among BSE sectoral indices, metal index fell the most by 1.76 per cent, followed by IT 0.64 per cent, PSU 0.55 per cent and auto 0.41 per cent. On the other hand, realty index was the star-performer and was up 3.03 per cent, followed by consumer durables 0.76 per cent, FMCG 0.28 per cent and banking 0.25 per cent.

Top five Sensex gainers were Axis Bank (+8.00%), ONGC (+2.38%), Bharti Airtel (+0.98%), Hero MotoCorp (+0.63%) and Wipro (+0.39%), while the major losers were Infosys (-2.43%), M&M (-2.14%), Tata Steel (-2.11%), State Bank of India (-2.02%) and Tata Motors (-1.66%).

Infosys fell as much as 2.5 per cent after going ex-dividend and was the biggest drag on the NSE index.

Recent outperformers fell, with State Bank of India losing 2 per cent, its third session of fall in seven. Punjab National Bank lost 2.5 per cent, its second session of loss in seven.

Bank recapitalisation

Both indexes have been scaling new peaks after the Indian government had said last week it would inject $32.4 billion to recapitalise banks and spend $82.2 billion to build roads.

The market movement on Tuesday mirrored the sluggishness in Asian stocks following overnight weakness on Wall Street.

“These two events (recapitalisation and infrastructure investment project) took market really high. So, some kind of consolidation is always expected,” said Saurabh Jain, assistant vice president, research, SMC Global Securities.

Asian stocks were mostly sluggish on Tuesday after weakness on Wall Street, while the dollar sagged following news that investigators probing Russian interference in the 2016 US election had charged President Donald Trump's former campaign manager.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.2 per cent.Japan's Nikkei lost 0.3 per cent , Australian shares were effectively flat and South Korea's KOSPI added 0.3 per cent .

Wall Street pulled back from record-high territory in overnight trade, weighed down by a drop in Merck shares and a report that US lawmakers are discussing a gradual phase-in of much-anticipated corporate tax cuts.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average index fell 85.45 points, or 0.36 per cent, to 23,348, the S&P500 index lost 8.24 points, or 0.32 per cent, to 2,572 and the Nasdaq Composite index dropped 2.30 points, or 0.03 per cent, to 6,698.

(With inputs from Reuters)

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