Sensex ends 74 pts down; ADAG, sugar stocks crash

Indian equities washed out all the day's gains in the last one hour of trade on Monday and closed lower for the third consecutive session, falling 0.4%. This was led by sell-off in oil & gas, capital goods, realty, auto (four wheeler), metal and PSU banks stocks. Weak European cues too weighed on the markets.

In the early trade, the 30-share BSE Sensex rallied nearly 200 points following strong global cues post Italian Senate backed austerity package last week. However, the index finally closed at 17,118.74 down 74.08 points and the 50-share NSE Nifty lost 20.50 points, to end at 5,148.35.

Earnings from some companies like M&M, Shree Renuka Sugars and Tata Steel too dampened the mood of investors.

Sandeep Shah, chief executive officer of Sampriti Capital told CNBC-TV18 in an interview that this quarter has had the worse quarterly results in couple of years. According to him, the broad trend clearly suggests further downgrades in the coming one or two quarters.

Heavyweights Reliance Industries and ONGC fell 1-1.7%; BHEL and SBI were down 2-2.5%.

M&M crashed 6% today post disappointing numbers in Q2. The company reported a net profit of Rs 737 crore while CNBC-TV18 expected at 773 crore. Operating profit margin grew at 11.87% in Q2FY12 versus 16.4% in a year ago period.