The Indian equity benchmarks edged lower on Tuesday after investors resorted to profit booking in HDFC and HDFC Bank a day after they staged a massive up move on merger plans. Recent outperformers like Reliance Industries, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Bharti Airtel were also facing selling pressure on account of profit taking. The Sensex fell as much as 246 points and Nifty 50 index slipped below its important psychological level of 18,000.
As of 9:32 am, the Sensex was down 162 points at 60,449 and Nifty 50 index fell 55 points to 17,998.
Meanwhile, most of the Asian markets were trading higher mirroring a strong session on Wall Street. Japan's Nikkei rose 0.1 per cent, Hong Kong's Hang Seng advanced 2 per cent and STRAITS TIMES rose 0.2 per cent.
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Overnight, stocks shook off a downbeat start to close higher Monday, as big gains by technology and communications companies helped offset losses elsewhere on Wall Street.
The S&P 500 rose 0.8 per cent after having been down 0.2 per cent in the early going. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.3 per cent and the Nasdaq composite added 1.9 per cent.
Back home, six of 15 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading lower led by the Nifty Financial Services index's 1.3 per cent fall. Nifty Bank, PSU Bank, Private Bank and Realty indices were also trading lower.
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On the other hand, auto, consumer durables, IT, media, metal and select oil & gas shares were witnessing buying interest.
Mid- and small-cap shares outperforming their larger peers as Nifty Midcap 100 index rose 0.6 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index advanced 0.74 per cent.
HDFC Bank was top Nifty loser, the stock fell 2.75 per cent to Rs 1,611 on account of profit booking after massive run up in the previous session. HDFC also fell 1.7 per cent on profit taking. Bajaj Finance, Bajaj Finserv, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Divi's Labs, IndusInd Bank, SBI Life, Bharti Airtel and Axis Bank were also among the losers.
The overall market breadth was positive as 2,113 shares were advancing while 856 were declining on the BSE.
On the flipside, Tata Motors was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose 2.33 per cent to Rs 457. Adani Ports, UPL, Eicher Motors, Tech Mahindra, Hero MotoCorp, ONGC, Titan, HCL Technologies, TCS and Mahindra & Mahindra also rose between 1-2 per cent.
