Sensex ends 74 points lower on profit booking

Profit booking emerged at higher levels in late trade today led the Sensex to close 74 points lower and the Nifty down by 21 points.

Major headlines

Inflation at 9.73% in October versus 9.72% in September

Sugar stocks lose steam

Shree Renuka hits 52-week low on brokerages downgrade, weak results

Fortis Healthcare slips after posting poor Q2 results

M&M slips on weak Q2 results



Indian indices

After trading in green for most part of the trade, the Indian markets lost ground in the last one hour of trade and closed lower. Profit booking in most of the sectors coupled with decline in the European stocks pushed the markets lower. Disappointing quarterly numbers of some companies dampened investor mood.

Continuous pressure from realty, metal, consumer durables, auto, power, oil & gas and PSU stocks weighed on the sentiments. Major heavyweight draggers — M&M, Tata Steel, SBI, RIL, ONGC, Tata Motors, DLF and BHEL.

Sensex movements: Strong global cues lifted the Sensex 156 points higher at 17349 in the opening trade and immediately hit an intraday high of 17392. Then the index remained in the green for most part of the session. However in late trade, fall in European stocks and profit booking dragged the index to intraday low of 17094. The Sensex fell 74 points to settle at 17119 and the Nifty stood at 5148, down by 21 points.

Market sentiment

The market breadth was weak, with 1985 shares falling, 865 shares rising and 94 were unchanged.

Viewing volumes

India's largest sugar refiner and ethanol producer - Shree Renuka Sugar was traded the most with over 2.30 crore shares changing hands on the BSE. Following that, a Jaypee group firm - Jaiprakash Power Ventures (0.56 crore shares), India's second largest real estate developer - Unitech (0.26 crore shares), India's largest automobile company – Tata Motors (0.24 crore shares) and an industrial finance company - IFCI (0.23 crore shares).

Sectoral & stock screening

Among the 13 sectoral indices, only three were in green. Gainers - BSE TECk gained by 0.76%, BSE IT surged by 0.68% and BSE HC jumped by 0.45%. Losers - BSE Realty dipped by 2.56%, BSE Metal slipped by 2.16% and BSE CD fell by 2.06%.

In 'A' group stocks, top performers — Sun TV Network surged by 4.22%, Ranbaxy Laboratories rose by 3.38% and Shree Cement advanced by 3.31%. Biggest losers – Shree Renuka Sugar down by 25.73%, Educomp Solutions fell by 10.28% and Dish TV India declined by 7.69%.

Global Indices:

The European stock markets turned negative on Monday (November 14, 2011), before an auction of up to 3 billion euros of five-year Italian bonds that will test investors' appetite for the country's debt and could set the equity market's near-term direction.

The Asian stock markets surged on Monday, helped by an easing of fears about Europe's debt crisis. But investors were reluctant to push the market higher ahead of an Italian debt auction later in the day.

The US stock index pointed to a mixed open on the Wall Street on Monday.