Mumbai: Falling for third day, Sensex on Thursday slid about 62 points to end at 26,995.87, its weakest level in nearly two weeks, on caution due to lingering worries over early Fed rate hikes and after US President Barack Obama promised to destroy militants in oil producers Syria and Iraq.
A heavy sell-off mainly in Sun Pharma, ONGC and Coal India led the BSE benchmark to end below 27,000-mark. In three straight sessions, Sensex has now lost nearly 324 points after hitting record highs on Monday.
Similarly, the broader 50-issue CNX Nifty of the NSE eased 8.40 points, or 0.10 percent, to 8,085.70 -- its lowest close since 8,083.05 on September 2.
Jittery global markets, already spooked by earlier than expected US Fed interest rate hike talk, became nervous after Obama's vow. The US President on Thursday promised to "degrade and ultimately destroy" the Islamic State (IS) as he announced a major expansion of the military campaign, including American airstrikes in Syria and deployment of 475 more military advisers to Iraq, to achieve this goal.
Weak Asian as well as European cues ahead of US jobless claims data and China's subdued inflation last month too weighed negatively on domestic sentiment, brokers said.
Leading the laggards in 30-share Sensex, Sun Pharma tanked 4.3 percent down on reports of a surprise inspection by US drug regulator at its Halol plant in Gujarat.
Coal India shares fell 3.53 percent on speculation government will sell a portion of shares at a discount to market price. Yesterday, CCEA cleared stake dilution in Coal India, ONGC and NHPC via OFS route. ONGC slid 3.58 percent.
Overall, 16 Sensex stocks declined while 14 led by SBI, Infosys, RIL, Axis Bank, BHEL, GAIL and Maruti ended up.
The Indian market is now looking forward to a bunch of macroeconomic data --CPI, WPI and industrial production-- to be announced tomorrow and early next week for further cues.
The rupee, however, appeared to be rebounding from 1-month lows of 60.95 against US dollar and was last trading at 60.77 levels on good selling of the greenback.
Meanwhile, Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) pulled out about Rs 10 crore while Domestic Institutional Investors (DIIs) sold shares worth Rs 511.25 crore yesterday, as per provisional data from stock exchanges.
Jignesh Chaudhary, Head of Research, Veracity Broking Services said: "Indian equities opened positively followed by Rupee appreciation as Asian markets were trading positively in the morning. But as the day progressed, indices lost their way and ended weak on continued Fed worries".
Besides Sun Pharma, ONGC and Coal India, other losers from the Sensex pack were Wipro (1.42 percent), Dr Reddy's Lab (0.66 percent), M&M (0.65 percent), Bharti Airtel (0.53 percent) and Tata Steel (0.43 percent).
The Sensex winners included the likes of SBI that rose 1.90 percent, BHEL 1.53 percent, Hero Moto Corp 1.52 percent, Tata Power 1.11 percent, HUL 0.92 percent and Gail India 0.64 percent.
Among the S&P BSE sectoral indices, Healthcare fell by 1.73 percent largely due to Sun Pharma losses. The BSE Metal index slid 1.08 percent. On the other hand, the Auto index rose by 0.66 percent, Capital Goods by 0.66 percent, Power by 0.57 percent and FMCG by 0.52 percent.
Smallcap and Midcap indices rose 1.46 percent and 1.14 percent respectively on persistent buying by retail buyers. As a result, total market breadth remained strong. About 2,025 stocks closed in the green while 1,041 finished in the red.
Market turnover rose to Rs 3,608.37 crore from Rs 3,262.72 crore yesterday.
