The markets consolidated their losses, after a brief period of recovery. In the post-noon session, the Sensex was quoting at 19,531 down 60 points, while the Nifty shed 22 points at 5,864.
Dull trades continued to dominate the session, even as the markets slipped 233 points from the day's high, scaled in the morning, to the day's low of 19,464 in the late morning. The markets have been moving in a negative range ever since.
In the broader markets, the Mid-cap and Small-cap indices were at 7,231 and 8,860, down 0.5% and 0.4% respectively.
Telecom major Bharti Airtel led the Sensex toppers chart up 2% at Rs 364, followed by Sterlite Industries at Rs 177 up almost 2% and L&T at Rs 1,685 up 1%. ITC, BHEL, Hindustan Unilever, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank were the other components that advanced between 0.4% to 1% on the benchmark.
Jaiprakash Associates remained weak, and the stock was trading at Rs 96 down 3%. Hindalco Industries at Rs 211 and Tata Motors at Rs 1,267 were down 2% each. Tata Motors contributed 11 points to the total loss on the Sensex. IT bellweather Wipro was down 2% at Rs 463, while Hero Honda and Relaince Infra declined nearly 2% each.
Reliance Industries slipped nearly 1% to Rs 1,033, as the oil and gas major faced pressure from fertiliser firms to make good the supply shortage they were facing due to lowered production at RIL's KG-D6 basin. The stock added 15 points to the total loss on the Sensex.
A marginal recovery was seen in the sectoral indices, with the FMCG, Capital Goods and Healthcare indices trading in the red. ALthought the FMCG index at 3,645 and the Capital Gooods index at 13,794, the Healthcare index was flat at 6,145.
Auto shares were low on steam, as the index moved down more than 1% to 9,440. Realty stocks witnessed selling pressure at 2,492 down 1%, as were PSU stocks at 9,080 also down 1%.
Auto stocks in the red were led by Apollo Tyres at Rs 67, Tata Motors at Rs 1,270 and Ashok Leyland at Rs 57, all down 2% each. Tata Motors contributed 11 points to the total loss on the Sensex. Hero Honda, Bajaj Auto, Exide Industries, Mahindra & Mahindra and MAruti Suzuki were down 1% each.
