Nifty fails to defend 8,200 mark, banks slip

Equity benchmark Nifty rose by 20 points to close at 8,180 today, with FMGC, IT, media, infrastructure and realty stocks leading the rally.
Profit booking in PSU Banks, Metal and Pharma sectors dragged the index.
Nifty opened with positive bias and posted the day's high of 8,215, but profit booking dragged the index down to an intra-day low of 8,171, correcting 44 points from its high.
Globally, European stocks traded lower as investors digested China's latest purchasing managers' index (PMI) readings and looked ahead to key policy events later this week. France's CAC, Germany's DAX and Britain's FTSE were down over 0.7 percent.

In Asia, markets failed to find a common thread after mixed signals from China. Japan's Nikkei lost 1.6 per cent while China's Shanghai and Hong Kong's Hang Seng ended flat with negative bias.
The 50-share Nifty resumed higher at 8,179.20 and moved in a range of 8,215.35 and 8,171.05 before closing at 8,179.95, showing a rise of 19.85 points or 0.24 per cent.

On the sectoral front, FMCG rose by 1.78 per cent, followed IT (0.87 per cent), Media (0.62 per cent), Infra (0.57 per cent) and Realty (0.52 per cent).
However, PSU Bank fell by 3.18 per cent, followed by Bank (1.12 per cent), Metal (0.85 per cent), Auto (0.57 per cent), Pharma (0.35 per cent) and Energy (0.11 per cent).

Among the index gainers were Adani Ports (5.28 per cent), Asian Paints (3.74 per cent), Bharti Airtel (3.37 per cent), ITC (2.95 per cent), TCS (2.51 per cent), Coal India (2.25 per cent) and Idea (2 per cent).
Index laggards included SBI (down by 3.27 per cent), Bank of Baroda (2.84 per cent), Tata Motors (2.27 per cent), Hindalco (2.04 per cent), ICICI Bank (1.88 per cent) and Bhel (1.54 per cent).
A total of 873 shares advanced, 684 fell, while 76 ruled steady.
Turnover in cash segment fell to Rs 17,383.75 crore from Rs 35,855.79 crore yesterday. A total of 9,431.15 lakh shares changed hands in 75,00,615 trades.

The market capitalisation of NSE stood at Rs 97,73,215 crore.