Sensex ends 120 points down; shrugs off positive global cues

The benchmark Nifty lost all of its Tuesday's gains in late trade sell-off while the Sensex shut shop below the 16000 mark. The markets were volatile throughout the day. Downtrend in banking, oil & gas exploration, capital goods, technology, power, select auto, metal and pharma stocks dragged the Sensex 120 points down.

The Indian markets shrugged off positive global cues. European markets were trading 1% higher, and Dow Jones & Nasdaq future was trading 1% & 0.5% higher, respectively, at the time of closing of Indian equities. Asian markets also closed positive; Shanghai and Taiwan gained 1.1% each. Hang Seng was up 0.67% and Nikkei up 0.3%. However, Straits Times fell 0.39% and Kospi was flat. The US markets also ended 1-1.5% higher on Tuesday.

Buying in HDFC Bank, Bharti Airtel, Sterlite, BPCL, Hindalo, Unitech, Hero Honda, Grasim and Jaiprakash Associates capped the losses to some extent.

The 30-share BSE Sensex closed at 15,922.17, down 120.01 points or 0.75% and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 0.74% or 35.45 points to settle at 4,757.20. The broader indices also erased all the early gains and ended flat, about 1337 shares advanced while 1527 shares declined on the BSE. Nearly 289 shares remained unchanged.

Sajiv Dhawan of JV Capital Services said, "Since there are shorts on the Nifty we are being quite circumspect and sitting on the sidelines. That's probably the safest way to play the market over the next couple of weeks as we seem to be lacking a lot of conviction even when we get good positive global cues."

Heavyweights Reliance Industries and ONGC declined 0.8% and 1.7%, respectively. Cairn India was down 0.33% while BPCL gained 2.18%.