Equities traded with a negative bias on Thursday and closed lower for sixth consecutive trading session ahead of the July futures and options (F & O) expiry.
The BSE S & P Sensex closed 17 points lower at 37,831 while the Nifty 50 was down 19 points at 11,252.
At the National Stock Exchange, sectoral indices were mixed. While Nifty pharma gained over 2 per cent and media by over 1 per cent, auto, FMCG, metal and PSU bank were in the red with thin margins.
Among stocks, Tata Motors skidded 4.79 per cent lower. Bajaj Finance was down by 4.3 per cent and Bajaj Finserv by 4.2 per cent. Coal India closed 3.3 per cent lower, JSW Steel by 2.5 per cent and Bharat Petroleum by 2.3 per cent.
Besides, heavyweight Reliance Industries plunged 1.91 per cent to Rs 1,235 per share. UPL, Yes Bank and NTPC too closed in the negative zone.
However, mining major Vedanta gained over 4.4 per cent and pharma firm Cipla by 3.5 per cent. The other gainers were Zee Entertainment, Sun Pharma and IndusInd Bank which moved up between 2.4 and 3.2 per cent.
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Meanwhile, Asian shares shrugged off a tech-fueled rally on Wall Street a day earlier and saw muted trading on Thursday amid a mixed picture for corporate earnings.
Benchmark indexes nudged higher in Japan, Hong Kong and China but declined in South Korea. Investors have generally been encouraged in recent days by hopes of some headway in trade negotiations between the United States and China.
There are also expectations that the European Central Bank and the US Federal Reserve will ease monetary policy soon.
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