Sensex closes more than half percent down

A benchmark index of Indian equities markets closed Tuesday's trade more than half a percent down owing to continued profit-booking.

Scrips of automobile, bank, health-care, oil and gas, public sector undertakings (PSUs) and realty companies plunged.

However, there was healthy buying spree in information technology (IT), technology, media and entertainment (TECk) and consumer durables stocks.

The 30-scrip sensitive index (S&P BSE Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened in the positive at 20,227.17 points, closed the day's trade at 20,111.61 points, down 112.37 points or 0.56 percent from its previous day close at 20,223.98 points.

The Sensex touched a high of 20,308.04 points and low of 20,072.68 points in the intra-day trade.

The wider 50-scrip Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) closed Tuesday's trade down 0.70 percent or 42.80 points at 6,114.10 points.

The BSE automobile index was down 197.42 points, bank index closed 133.35 points lower, followed by health-care index down 76.78 points, oil and gas index down 72.84 points and realty index down 52.19 points.

However, IT index was up 47.91 points followed by the TECk index which was higher by 15.81 points and consumer durables index marginally up 0.89 percent.

Prominent Sensex gainers were: Coal India, up 2.11 percent at Rs.307.10; BHEL, up 1.83 percent at Rs.205.60; Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), up 1.03 percent at Rs.1,492.95; Infosys, up 0.92 percent at Rs.2,397.45; and Sun Pharma, up 0.78 percent at Rs.973.65.

Among the major Sensex losers were companies like NTPC that dropped 4.21 percent to Rs.152.40; Tata Motors, down 3.06 percent to Rs.293.15; Maruti Suzuki, down 2.49 percent to Rs.1,698.45; State Bank of India (SBI), down 2.16 percent to Rs.2,361.10; and Tata Steel, down 2.11 percent to Rs.308.65.

Among other Asian markets, Japan's Nikkei closed 0.13 percent up but Hong Kong's Hang Seng went down by 0.54 percent. China's Shanghai Composite Index closed higher by 0.22 percent.

In the European markets, Britain's FTSE 100 was trading 0.17 percent up. However, the German DAX was down 0.18 percent and the French CAC 40 was ruling 0.29 percent lower.