In choppy trade, the Sensex today fell 49 points to close at 19,732.76 as Prime Minister's key advisor slashed the GDP growth forecast for this fiscal and said the current stance of monetary policy should be continued until stability in the rupee is achieved.
Edgy global stocks ahead of US retail sales and consumer confidence data that may influence stimulus tapering also affected domestic markets. After dropping nearly 216 points in the previous session, the Sensex lost another 49.12 points, or 0.25 per cent.
The Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC) Chairman C Rangarajan said GDP will grow at 5.3 per cent this fiscal compared with April projection of 6.4 per cent growth.
The bluechip index remained volatile intra-day and rose to a high of 19,899.37 and a low of 19,675.68. Yesterday, government data showed inflation eased slightly to 9.52 per cent in August and factory output grew 2.6 per cent in July.
Rupee was also trading weak at 63.7 levels versus dollar.
Gains in Bajaj Auto, BHEL, Coal India, Hero MotoCorp, Jindal Steel, Larsen and Toubro, Mahindra and Mahindra, ONGC, State Bank of India, Tata Power and Sun Pharma helped prevent a major fall in the 30-share index.
19 Sensex stocks declined led by HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Infosys, ITC, Reliance Industries, Tata Steel, Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services.
The 50-scrip NSE Nifty edged down by 0.10 points to 5,850.60, after moving between 5,884.30 and 5,822.90. Also SX40 index, the flagship index of MCX-SX, ended at 11,706.18, down 28.16 points or 0.24 per cent.
Sectorally, the consumer durable index suffered the most by losing 1.54 per cent to 5,749.11 followed by IT index by 1.43 per cent to 7,802.40.
On a weekly basis, the Sensex managed to rise for the third successive time as the index gained 462.7 points or 2.40 per cent.
