Key indian stock index sheds day's gains in minutes

After trading in the positive terrain for the bulk of the day on Tuesday, a key Indian stock market index shed some 310 points in a matter of minutes and was quoting lower than the previous day's quote with an hour to go for the closing bell.

The sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) opened above the psychologically-important 28,000-point mark at 28,069.85 points and inched up slowly to the day's high so far of 28,180.64 points -- a gain of over 200 points.

But a bout of profit-taing dragged the barometer index in a matter of a few minutes to a low of 27,868.21 points. At this point, the index was down 107 points. With less than an hour to go for the closing bell, the day's overall loss for the index was 36.79 points, or -0.13 percent.

A similar trend at the National Stock Exchange (NSE) saw the broader 50-share CNX Nifty trading at 8,483.55 points, with a loss of 8.75 points, ot 0.10 percent.

The stocks oil and gas, healthcare and auto companies were collectively the top performers, while those of banking, information technology and technology firms were the worst, with each of them in the negative territory.