Hopes of speedy economic reforms at this stage faded as the standoff in Parliament between Government and the Opposition over CAG report on coal block allocation continued for the third day today.
Global stocks retreated from their multi-month highs on renewed worries over deteriorating world economy after a slew of disappointing economic data from eurozone and China amid uncertainty on further stimulus measures from major Central banks.
The RBI, in its Annual Report for 2011-12 released yesterday, stated that inflation remains the keystone of monetary policy action, dampening expectations of rate cuts in upcoming mid-quarter monetary policy review.
After a sluggish start, the key index faced heavy selling pressure throughout the session on broad-based sell- off though it tried to recover some ground in mid-morning.
Financial stocks mainly contributed to losses followed by oil & gas, tech, infra and metal counters. However, FMCG stocks saw good buying interest.
The 50-share Nifty hovered between a high of 5,399.65 and a low of 5,371 before ending at 5,386.70, a fall of 28.65 points, or 0.53 per cent, over the last close.
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RInfra, DLF, JP Associates, Jindal Steel, Tata Steel, ICICI Bank, Hindalco, Axis Bank, Infosys and Reliance were the top percentage-wise Nifty losers. ONGC, Coal India, BPCL, ITC, Maruti, Sesa Goa, Wipro, Ranbaxy, Siemens and Cipla gained.
The turnover in cash segment dropped to Rs 8,881.37 crore from Rs 10,109.71 crore yesterday. Overall, 5,942.50 lakh shares changed hands in 50,33,665 trades. Total market capitalisation stood at Rs 60,80,888 crore.