Markets end in red after 4-day rally

The Sensex ended lower after four-day winning streak amid volatile session ahead of F&O expiry. Consumer durables, realty and IT stocks moved up while FMCG, metal, and capital goods dipped. It opened on a quite note on Wednesday tracking negative Asian shares and traded in a lacklustre manner with not much movements during the day. Select buying and selling was being witnessed in frontliners. Finally, the index closed in red after touching a high of 17,440.05 and low of 17,322.80 as European market belled the day on a negative note

BSE Midcap and Smallcap index rose 0.33% and 1.13% respectively.

On global front, European stocks declined after a six-day rally pushed the Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index to the highest level in almost 15 months. Asian stocks fell for the first time in three days as Japan Airlines Corp. and Asiana Airlines plunged on debt concerns and as lower oil and gold prices dragged down commodity producers

The Sensex ended the day with a loss of 57.74 points, or 0.33% at 17,343.82 after touching a high of 17,440.05 and a low of 17,322.80. The broad-based NSE Nifty fell 18.50 points, or 0.36% at 5,169.45 after hitting a high of 5,197.05 and a low of 5,160.10.

Major gainers in the 30-share index were Reliance Infrastructure (1.59%), ACC (1.29%), Grasim Industries (1.17%), Mahindra & Mahindra (0.34%), Tata Power Company (0.34%), and ICICI Bank (0.27%).

On the other hand, ITC (2.15%), Hero Honda Motors (2.08%), Sun Pharmaceutical Industries (1.26%), Hindalco Industries (1.23%), Tata Steel (1.17%), and Larsen & Toubro (1.13%) were the major losers in the Sensex.

Overall market breadth was positive. Out of the total 2,935 stocks traded at BSE, 1,779 advanced, 1,083 declined while 73 remained unchanged.

Among the sectoral indices, BSE Consumer Durables which went up 1.45%, climbed 0.57%, Realty rose 0.55%, IT went up 0.14% and Auto rose 0.10%, while BSE FMCG lost 1.12%, Metal lost 0.77%, Capital Goods dropped 0.69%, Oil & Gas fell 0.5% and HC dropped 0.28%.