In volatile trade, the BSE benchmark Sensex today closed 40 points down at 18877.96, near its three-month lows, on profit-booking in metal, realty, consumer durable and capital goods sector, amid a weak global trend.
After resuming on a flattish note at 18,920.90, the S&P BSE Sensex fell over 150 points within first hour of trade on concerns over global growth outlook and weak data from Europe.
Thereafter, Sensex tried to script a turnaround on numerous occasions but profit-selling kept it in on a tight leash. It finally settled at 18,877.96 -- a loss of 40.56 points, or 0.21 per cent compared to Friday's level.
At this level, the index is close to the three-month low of 18,842.08 hit on November 27. On Budget day, Sensex had closed at 18,861.54.
The broad-based National Stock Exchange index Nifty today lost 21.20 points, or 0.37 per cent, to close at 5,698.50.
Second-line shares continued to reel under heavy selling pressure. As a result, total 362 stocks closed at their lower circuit bands. NHPC lost over 18 per cent.
The BSE-Smallcap and BSE-Midcap indices closed down by 1.89 per cent and 1.37 per cent respectively.
Across-the-board selling was seen as 12 out of 13 sectoral indices ended with losses with metal, realty, consumer durable, capital goods, PSUs and power segments suffering the most.
Metal shares from 30-share Sensex like Jindal Steel, Hindalco, Tata Steel and Sterlite dropped between 1.95-4.55 per cent. HUL, L&T and Maruti Suzuki lost over 2 percent each.
ITC, TCS, Bharti and Dr Reddy's were major gainers.
Banking stocks led by HDFC Bank, SBI and ICICI Bank closed higher on expectations the RBI will cut interest rates later this month.
The global sentiment was poor after China last weekend announced fresh measures to cool the property market.
European indices were trading lower with finance ministers expected to meet in Brussels today to discuss issues including a bailout for Cyprus.
