Sensex ends lower; realty, metals, FMCG, infra, banks dip

The Sensex ended lower on the back of fall in shares of metal, realty, power, capital goods, telecom and banking companies, after seeing a recovery of around 285 points from the day's low of 14,888.41. Volumes remained above the Rs 1 lakh crore for second consecutive day. The markets were extemely volatile ahead of July settlement on Thursday.

Equity benchmarks were flat for the first two hours of trade. But they saw sharp fall after 12 hours IST following more than 7.5% fall in Shanghai, which managed to show some recovery and ended with 5% loss on the back of sell-off in property and steel shares. Investors booked profits as they worried that banks may restrict lending to control risks that threaten on asset bubble. Chinese government also reduced gasoline prices.

Among the other Asian markets, Hang Seng fell 2.4%. Jakarta, Straits Times and Taiwan Weighted were down 0.5-0.8%. Nikkei and Kospi were flat.

However, the markets managed to show smart recovery post the European markets' positive opening, which rose 0.7-1.5%. The 50-share NSE Nifty saw recovery of 92.7 points from day's low of 4420.80, before closing at 4513.50, down 1.11% or 50.60 points. The 30-share BSE Sensex fell 158.48 points or 1.03%, to settle at 15,173.46. The Nifty July futures closed with 17.3 points discount and August futures with 5.5 points discount.

Sudarshan Sukhani of Technical Trends said, "Traders should be very careful and cautious, investors can as well wait for either 4,700 to be broken or for a deeper correction. These are volatile areas and not much is going to come out between 4,400 and 4,700."

The markets recorded highest turnover ever; total turnover increased 39% to Rs 1,47,352.24 crore as against Rs 1,05,933.55 crore. This included Rs 23,333.69 crore from the NSE cash segment, Rs 1,16,508.34 crore from the NSE F&O and the balance Rs 7,510.21 crore from the BSE cash segment.