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Markets continued to remain weak in late trades on Thursday as investors turned cautious and booked profit in rate sensitive shares after which had gained sharply yesterday after the US Fed announced plans to start reducing its monetary stimulus measures.
At 2:20PM, the 30-share Sensex was down 88 points at 20,772 and the 50-share Nifty was down 28 points at 6,189.
The rupee has come off its day's lows on the back of dollar sales from PSU and foreign banks. The rupee is currently at 62.23 compared to its close of 62.09 on Wednesday. Meanwhile, currency dealers said the impact of the Federal Reserve plans to reduce its monetary stimulus measures by $10 billion has been largely priced in.
Asian markets were trading mixed with Japan's benchmark index Nikkei leading the gains. The Nikkei ended up 1.7% amid a weakening yen following the US Fed's annoucement to start reducing its bond-buying programme. Hang Seng and Shanghai Composite were down nearly 1% each while Straits Times was trading flat.
European markets were trading higher in early trades after the US Fed signalled that low interest rates would prevail even as the US central bank announced reduction in its bond-buying program. CAC-40, DAX and FTSE-100 were up 1-1.7% each.
Bankex was the top loser among the sectoral indices on the BSE down 2% followed by Capital Goods, Consumer Durables, Oil and Gas among others. However, IT and Healthcare indices were among the top gainers up 1.2-1.7% each.
Bank shares shed most of yesterday's gains after the RBI maintained status quo on key policy rates. ICICI Bank, HDFC, HDFC Bank and SBI were down 1.6-2.7% each contributing the most to the Sensex decline.
In the capital goods space, L&T was down 2.3% on profit taking after recent gains.
Other Sensex losers include, ITC and ONGC among others.
IT majors were among the top gainers on signs of improving business environment in the US. Most of the IT majors earn a major portion of their revenues from exports to the US. Infosys, Wipro and TCS were up 1-2.5% each.
Other gainers include, Sun Pharma, Tata Motors and Sesa Sterlite among others.
In the broader market, the BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices are trading flat with positive bias.
Market breadth was weak with 1,160 losers and 1,096 gainers on the BSE.
