BSE Sensex falls 195 points, Nifty below 8,300 on Assembly poll result

The BSE Sensex fell over 195 points and the Nifty dipped below 8,300-level as participants indulged in profit-booking amidst poll trends suggesting a hung assembly in Jammu and Kashmir and the Bharatiya Janata Party inching towards forming government in Jharkhand.

Besides, a cautious stance adopted by participants ahead of the monthly expiry in the derivatives segment on Wednesday cast its shadow on sentiments. Markets are closed for trading on Thursday on account of Christmas.

After rising over 150 points in early trade on the back of a firming trend in global markets coupled with covering-up of short positions by speculators, the 30-share Sensex fell back to close at 27,506.46, down 195.33 points, or 0.71 per cent. It shuttled between 27,851.10 and 27,475.13 intra-day. The index had rallied by 991.66 points in the past three sessions on the back of positive domestic and global cues.

Similarly, the National Stock Exchange index Nifty, after rising to 8,364.75 at the outset, succumbed to selling pressure and dipped below the 8,300-mark to end at 8,267.00, down 57 points, or 0.68 per cent after moving between 8,364.75 and 8,252.85.

Equity brokers said emergence of profit-booking by funds in stocks that had recently logged gains amidst absence of any fresh trigger and a weak trend at other Asian markets led to the fall in markets.

Further, poll trends in Jharkhand and Jammu & Kashmir also influenced sentiments, they said.

Major losers that pulled down the Sensex and Nifty were metals, realty, consumer durables, oil & gas, IT, PSU, power, healthcare, banking and auto sector stocks.

Of the 30-Sensex constituents, 20 ended lower and 10 finished in positive zone.

Bucking the trend, NTPC, Bajaj Auto, Cipla, Bharti Airtel, Hero MotoCorp, GAIL, ITC Ltd and TCS ended between 0.08 and 3.03 per cent higher and limited the fall in the benchmark.

Sectorwise, the BSE metal index suffered the most by falling 1.89 per cent, followed by Capital Goods (1.46 per cent), Consumer Durables (1.39 per cent), Oil & Gas (0.96 per cent), IT index (0.90 per cent), Realty index (0.77 per cent), Banking index (0.69 per cent), Auto index (0.18 per cent) and Healthcare index (0.06 per cent), all in the negative territory.

Smallcap index fell 0.64 per cent and Mid-cap index ended 0.33 per cent lower.

Meanwhile, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares worth a net Rs 335.24 crore on Monday.