The market struggled to maintain its gains, as selling in key infotech, realty and pharma counters took the below the 6,500-level, losing 23.80 points at the National Stock Exchange (NSE) here today.
The market slipped during the final hour as shares of infotech major Infosys plunged a whopping 8.54 per cent on sluggish growth projections for the January-March quarter due to weak spending by clients.
Shares of Sun Pharma tanked by 5.19 per cent due to a drug import ban by the US FDA from the company's Karkhadi facility in Gujarat for allegedly violating manufacturing norms. This was followed by profit booking in recently gained realty major DLF by 6.03 per cent.
However, state owned BPCL surged by 7.48 per cent, followed by Kotak Bank surging by 2.62 per cent.
Meanwhile, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought shares worth Rs 864.35 crore yesterday, as per provisional data from stock exchanges.
The market bucked the weak trend triggered by the news of Infosys' growth projections amid mixed Asian cues during morning trades. Indices moved in a narrow range during afternoon and the final hour trades witnessed a sudden slide which pulled down the benchmark to end in red.
The 50-share Nifty traded between a high of 6,561.45 points and a low of 6,476.65 points before ending at 6,493.10 points, down by 23.80 points, or 0.37 per cent, over its last close.
Other major losers were JP Associates, Ranbaxy, Jindal Steel, SSLT, TCS, Grasim and BHEL, while, M&M, Dr Reddys, ONGC, HDFC Bank, Heromotoco, Coal India, ACC and HDFC ended up with gains.
Turnover in the cash segment jumped to Rs 14,141.81 crore from Rs 11,314.57 crore yesterday. A total of 6,725.75 lakh shares changed hands in 64,48,200 trades, while market capitalisation stood at Rs 69,26,886 crore.
