After a splendid start of the week, the benchmark Sensex slid by 101.33 points buy managed to close above 21k mark at 21,032.88. Dented by heavy profit booking, analysts said that the most of the short term traders exited the markets prior to the wholesale price index (WPI) data due to be released on January 15. The Sensex had gained 421 points in the previous two sessions.
Second biggest fall of the year, 22 stocks out of 30 shares comprising Sensex declined. Nifty also fell by 30.90 points to 6,241.85 as 36 shares fell out of 50 counters comprising the index. Ten of the 12 BSE sectoral indices fell, led by metal and real estate stocks. Metal and real estate indices both fell by 1.40 per cent.
All, bank, capital goods, technology and information technology indices also contracted by over 0.60 per cent. While most of the indices came under pressure from profit booking, health care index rose by 0.66 per cent and oil & gas index also managed to end the session with a marginal gain of 0.08 per cent.
Along with retail investors, foreign institutional investors (FII) were also seen booking profit. While on Monday, FIIs had invested Rs 413.85 crore but on Tuesday FIIs sold shares worth Rs 260.88 crore, as per the provisional data provided by the stock exchanges. Brokers said a weak trend in Asia and a lower opening in Europe following overnight losses in the US market also had an huge impact on Indian markets.
Key indices in Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan ended lower while China's Shanghai Composite rose. European stocks declined, tracking weak Asian markets and overnight losses in US stocks. Overall, Indian market breadth remained negative as 1,485 stocks fell, 1,211 stocks rose and 129 ruled steady.
In the local market, the major Sensex losers were Tata Steel (2.91 pc), Sesa Sterlite (1.79 pc), TCS (1.78 pc), ICICI Bank (1.77 pc) and Wipro (1.56 pc).
The gainers included Cipla, which rose by 2.09 pc, Dr Reddy's laboratories 1.21 pc, Infosys 0.63 pc and HDFC 0.61 pc.
Among the S&P BSE sectoral indices, Metal dropped 1.41 pc, followed by Realty 1.4 pc, IT 0.67 pc, Bankex 0.66 pc and Capital Goods and Teck 0.63 pc each.