Sensex trades 52 points down; banking stocks fall

A day after it touched a two-week high, a barometer index of the Indian equity markets was trading in the red during the late-afternoon session on Friday.

Logjam in parliament, impending US rate hike decision and other negative global cues led to the barometer 30-scrip sensitive index (Sensex) of the S&P Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) trading 52 points down.

The wider 50-scrip Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) was also trading in the negative territory. It was down 18 points or 0.21 percent at 8,570.55 points.

The S&P BSE Sensex, which opened at 28,327.11 points, was trading at 28,246.31 points (2.30 p.m.) -- down 51.82 points or 0.18 percent from the previous day's close at 28,298.13 points.

The Sensex so far touched a high of 28,335.67 points and a low of 28,204.62 points in the intra-day trade.

Analysts said Indian markets opened positively tracking the SGX Nifty and was buoyed by the previous gains made by the capital goods, banking and automobile stocks.

"The markets are in a consolidation mode after a healthy rally in the past couple of days. With no further domestic cues and a stalemate in parliament, investors were seen reluctant to chase higher prices," Anand James, co-head, technical research, Geojit BNP Paribas, told IANS.

"Cues from European and Chinese markets were not conducive for the markets. On Thursday, the Wall Street traded lower. UK-based FTSE 100 index also closed lower after a vote rejected the proposal to increase interest rates there."

According to James, markets were also awaiting the release of the US non-farm payroll data.

The data point is significant -- if it shows recovery in the US economy, then the US Fed is likely to raise interest rates in September.

With higher interest rates in the US, the FPIs are expected to be led away from emerging markets such as India.

Sector-wise, healthy buying was observed in oil and gas, automobile and consumer durables stocks. However, banking, capital goods and healthcare sectors came under selling pressure.

The S&P BSE oil and gas index increased by 91.23 points, followed by automobile index which gained 50.47 points and consumer durables index was higher by 18.76 points.

The S&P BSE banking index receded by 163.49 points, capital goods index declined by 149.06 points and the healthcare index was lower by 41.26 points.