Sensex snaps 4-day winning streak on profit booking

Equity benchmarks snapped four days winning streak on the back of profit booking and closed below their psychological levels, as they looked overbought. The Nifty was very strong since the opening trade today following strong US and Asian cues but profit booking & weak European cues in last half an hour of trade dragged it lower. 

There was a sharp slide in banking and realty indices from higher levels, which closed flat. These were up more than one percent during the day. Technology, metal, FMCG, pharma, select power, oil & gas and telecom companies' shares witnessed selling pressure; even ICICI Bank also slipped.

However, L&T, SBI, Bharti, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, DLF, Hero Honda, HDFC, Reliance Power and Siemens were the only gainers.

The 30-share BSE Sensex closed at 17,938.16, down 47.74 points or 0.27% and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 14.50 points or 0.27% to settle at 5,386.15, which had rallied over 150 points in last four days.

However, Abhijit Chakraborty of Fortune Financial looked bullish. The Sensex has the potential to go up to 19,000 levels, consolidate over there, and maybe then take a fresh move up to 20,000, he said. ''Going by the trends and FII inflows that is coming into the market, I would suspect that the market can breakout on higher levels. We are looking at about 25-30% growth for Sensex earning this year and another 20% next year. The Sensex is likely to trade in a 17,000 to 19,000 band in the next couple of months.''

On the global front, European markets like CAC and FTSE were down 0.4% each, at the time of closing of Indian equities; DAX was flat. But Asian markets ended 0.6-1.5% higher; Nikkei rallied 2.7%.