Sensex, Nifty end near day's low

Indian stocks drifted lower on Monday, with the key stock benchmarks ending near the day's low, after the Chinese market tumbled in late trade in the wake of the weekend rate hike and the European markets weakened.



The broader indices finished mixed, with the market breadth more or less neutral. Sector-wise, Pharma and IT stocks bucked the negative trend while Metals and Real Estate shares were among the top losers.

Sentiment in India was partly driven by the volatile behaviour of the Chinese market and later by the European indices. Markets in China surprisingly held firm for most part of the day before a late bout of selling pressure dragged the indices down.

That had a bearing on the European stocks, which also fell sharply at the opening bell. However, losses in the Indian stocks weren't as steep as that in the overseas markets.

The BSE Sensex closed at 20,028, up 44 points or 0.2% over the previous close. It had earlier been as high as 20,190 and as low as 20,010 after opening at 20,062.

The NSE Nifty lost 13 points or 0.2% to end at 5,998, after hitting the day's low of 5,991. It earlier touched a day's high of 6,045 after opening at 6,013.

The BSE Small-Cap index was up 0.2% while the BSE Mid-Cap index lost 0.2%.

The market breadth was just marginally positive with 1,461 shares rising and 1,396 shares falling on the BSE.

RCOM, Sterlite, Reliance Infra, Bharti Airtel,Tata Steel, Hindalco, NTPC, HDFC, RIL,SAIL, Reliance Power and Suzlon were the laggards in the main indices

Cipla, Tata Power, Bajaj Auto, Wipro, BHEL, ICICI Bank, ONGC, DLF, HUL, Ambuja Cement, Sun Pharma and Sesa Goa were among the notable gainers in the Sensex and the Nifty.

Gammon Infra, Praj Inds, KEC Intl, BF Utilities, Arss Infra Proj, Gammon India, Kiri Dyes, Essar Ship Ports, Mastek, Mcnally Bharat, Dish TV India and BGR Energy were among the notable gainers in the broader market.

Outside the two main indices, the key losers were Patel Engr, Koutons Retl, Shree Ashtavina, Karuturi Glob, SAIL, Prestige Estates, KGN Inds, Reliance Media, Idea Cellular, United Brew, JSW Energy and Berger Paints.

China's benchmark Shanghai SE Composite index ended 1.9% lower at 2,781 after being as low as 2,774 and as high as 2,876.

In focus was the quarter-point hike in China’s key lending and deposit rates, the second time it has increased benchmark rates in 10 weeks.

With the previous efforts to slow the Chinese economy not yielding the desired results, policymakers are now turning their attention to the interest rates.

The Nikkei Stock Average gained 0.7% to close at 10,355 while the Kospi in Seoul shed ~0.4% to finish at 2,022. The Taiex in Taiwan rose 0.35% at 8,892 while the Straits Times index in Singapore advanced 0.5% at 3,159.

In Europe, the German Dax index in Frankfurt was down 1.2% at 6,975 after being as low as 6,943. The CAC 40 index in Paris dropped by over 1% at 3,858.

Financial markets in London were shut and will not resume trading till Wednesday.

Volumes remained thin in Europe as many traders were still away for Christmas holiday.

The Stoxx 600 slid 0.7% to 279.49 at 9:27 a.m. in London. The gauge has climbed for four straight weeks, extending this year’s rally to 10%.

In the peripheral markets, the Spanish IBEX 35 index slid 1.5% to 9,955.60.