Mumbai: Market let go of its winning momentum of the past three days as the Sensex slumped 114 points Wednesday after Europe turned shaky over talk of withdrawal of ECB stimulus and on profit-booking in recent outperformers.
There is a heightened sense of speculation, especially after comments from top Fed officials, that a US rate hike is coming before the end of this year.
"Speculation over a taper in ECB's stimulus measures has pushed the global bond yields on a rise and kept the European equity markets under vigil. As a result domestic investors are cautious...," said Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services.
Investors were also wary of the threat of a hard Brexit. Slower services growth in September added to the worries. The Nikkei India Services PMI stood at 52 in September, down from August's 54.7, pointing to a slower rate of expansion.
The 30-share index settled lower by 113.57 points, or 0.40 percent, at 28,220.98.
The gauge, which rose over 91 points after a surprise 0.25 percent rate cut by RBI in its policy review yesterday, had gained 507.02 points in the previous three sessions.
The NSE Nifty reclaimed the 8,800-mark, but could not hold on to it under the selling pressure. It closed down 25.20 points, or 0.29 percent, at 8,743.95.
In the beginning, the mood was one of big optimism on IMF growth upgrade for India to 7.6 percent for 2016-17, which pushed up buying. But soon, this gave way to profit-booking in recent gainers, led by banking and auto, and weak global cues further pushed down the indices into negative territory.
In stock-specific action, ONGC plunged 2.56 percent to Rs 266.75 while Axis Bank lost 2.03 percent to Rs 535.70, mainly after investors booked profit.
Those that lagged included Bajaj Auto, Hero MotoCorp, M&M, Dr Reddy's, ICICI Bank, Adani Ports and TCS, falling by up to 1.28 percent.
Out of 30 Sensex shares, 19 ended lower while 11 gained.
The BSE banking index fell the most by 0.78 percent. Others such as IT, technology, healthcare and oil and gas too suffered losses.
The broader markets gave a better account, with the small-cap index gaining 0.62 percent and mid-cap 0.50 percent.
Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) snapped up shares worth net Rs 344.13 crore yesterday, showed provisional data.
Asian indices closed higher, but Europe was in a spot of bother amid investor worries that the European Central Bank (ECB) is moving towards a tighter monetary policy.
Japan's Nikkei rose 0.50 percent while Hong Kong's Hang Seng closed 0.34 percent higher. Chinese financial markets remained closed for a public holiday.
London's FTSE was down 0.49 percent, Frankfurt's DAX 0.70 percent and France's Paris CAC 40 0.90 percent.
