Sensex snaps 2-day rising streak, slips 71 pts

Benchmark Sensex broke its two-day winning streak to end about 71 points lower at 35,574.55 today, tracking losses across Asian peers ahead of imposition of US tariffs on Chinese exports.

Index heavyweight Reliance Industries slumped 2.53 per cent after the conglomerate's Chairman Mukesh Ambani unveiled a mega fixed-line broadband initiative and announced plans for an e-commerce platform that may rival the likes of Amazon.

Consumer durables, realty, IT, metal, teck, pharma, capital goods, power and oil and gas suffered losses as participants pulled money off the table.

Unabated foreign fund outflows and a weak rupee added to the gloom, brokers said.

Asian stock markets mostly ended lower as caution crept in ahead of the July 6 deadline of imposition of US tariffs on Chinese goods.

After opening higher, the 30-share Sensex quickly slipped into the red, largely in line with weak Asian cues, and hit a low of 35,517.79. It finally finished at 35,574.55, down by 70.85 points, or 0.20 per cent. Intra-day, it touched a high of 35,748.26.

The index had climbed 380.99 points in the past two sessions, spurred by sustained buying by domestic institutional investors (DIIs), encouraging services PMI data for June and higher MSP for kharif crops.

The wider NSE Nifty too fell by 20.15 points or 0.19 per cent to end at 10,749.75. It shuttled between 10,726.25 and 10,786.05 during the session.

Meanwhile, on a net basis, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold shares worth Rs 284.58 crore, while DIIs bought shares to the tune of Rs 611.01 crore in yesterday's trade, provisional data showed.