Sensex dips 114 points on profit booking

After touching nearly a month's high a day ago, a benchmark index of Indian equities market closed Tuesday's trade 0.58 percent or 114 points down on profit booking and weak European cues.

Almost all the sectors were in red, except consumer durables and healthcare. Selling pressure was seen in banking, oil and gas, auto, public sector undertakings (PSU) and capital goods scrips.

The 30-scrip sensitive index (Sensex) of the S&P Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened at 19,573.93 points, closed at 19,463.82 points, down 113.57 points or 0.58 percent from previous day's close at 19,577.39 points.

The Sensex touched a high of 19,589.14 points and a low of 19,442.75 points intra-day.

The wider 50-scrip Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) ended 0.70 percent or 41.30 points down at 5,857.55 points.

The S&P BSE consumer durables index went up by 47.85 points and healthcare index climbed up by 46.92 points; while bankex dipped by 104.14 points, oil and gas index slipped by 90.93 points; auto index went down by 83.07 points, PSU index slid by 65.85 points and capital goods index went down by 56.15 points.

The prominent Sensex gainers were: Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd., up 2.74 percent at Rs.183.70; Gail India, up 2.66 percent at Rs.331.85; Bharti Airtel, up 2.51 percent at Rs.302.75; and Sterlite Industries, up 1.84 percent at Rs.88.35.

The losers were: Jindal Steel, down 4.21 percent at Rs.214.00; Tata Power, down 1.87 percent at Rs.86.75; ONGC, down 1.83 percent at Rs.322.30; Infosys, down 1.72 percent at Rs.2,405.55; Maruti Suzuki, down 1.62 percent at Rs.1,579.20; and HDFC Bank, down 1.44 percent at Rs.657.65.

Among the Asian markets, Nikkei was up by 1.78 percent while Hang Seng was down by 0.70 percent and KOSPI fell 0.04 percent.

In Europe, the FTSE 100 was trading 0.39 percent down; Germany's DAX Index was down by 1.06 percent and French CAC 40 Index was down by 0.63 percent.