Profit booking, global cues drag Indian equity market lower

Mumbai, Jan 6 (IANS) The key Indian equity indices that opened in the green on Friday closed the day's trading in red territory as investors' booked profit before third quarter earnings and also the global markets edged lower.

The 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex) closed 119.01 points or 0.44 per cent lower.

The Sensex, which opened at 26,929.69 points, closed at 26,759.23 points after touching a high of 27,009.61 points and a low of 26,733.33 points during the day.

The wider 51-scrip Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) also closed in the negative territory - 30 points or 0.36 per cent down at 8,243.80 points"

"Despite starting the day on a positive note, benchmark indices failed to hold above the dotted line and succumbed to profit booking. Both the Sensex and the Nifty finally closed the day with losses of over 0.25 per "ent," said Karthikraj Lakshmanan, Senior Fund Manager - Equities, BNP Paribas Mutual Fund"

"Most overseas markets edged lower in the wake of mixed jobs data from th" US," he added.

In Friday's trade, good buying was observed in banking sector, while selling pressure was seen in information technology (IT), technology, media and entertainment (TECK) and realty sectors.

On the BSE, bankex went up by 0.86 per cent, while IT index dropped by 2.54 per cent, TECK index fell by 2.16 per cent and realty index slipped by 0.97 per cent.

The 100-scrip and 200-scrip indices were both down by 0.33 per cent. Mid-cap index ended lower by around 0.27 per cent and small-cap stocks fell by 0.43 per cent.

The Sensex gainers were: ONGC, up 1.40 per cent at Rs 202.45 and Asian Paints, up 1.23 per cent at Rs 927.70.

The losers included: Infosys, down 2.50 per cent at Rs 971.45; Wipro, down 2.18 per cent at Rs 469.90; TCS, down 2.18 per cent at Rs 2283.60 and ITC, down 1.56 per cent at Rs 242.65.

Among the Asian markets, Japan's Nikkei was lower by 0.34 per cent, China's Shanghai Composite Index was down by 0.35 per cent, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng was higher by 0.21 per cent.

In Europe, London's FTSE 100 was down by 0.11 per cent, France's CAC 40 was lower by 0.43 per cent and Germany's DAX Index was down by 0.14 per cent at the closing in the Indian markets.