MUMBAI: The BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty witnessed some profit booking on Monday despite Asian stock markets gaining on the back of China interest rate cut for a sixth time in less than a year. Sensex closed 108.85 points down at 27,361.96. Nifty closed 34.90 points down at 8,260.55.
In the 50-share index, BHEL, Bajaj Auto, Vedanta, Tata Steel and HCL Technologies gained between 1.40 percent and 3.45 percent. On the other hand, Asian Paints, YES Bank, Coal India, HDFC and Ultratech Cement slid between 2 percent and 4.65 percent. Disappointment over earnings hit shares of HDFC and Asian Paints.
Among the sectoral indices on the BSE, the BSE Power index gained the most 0.46 percent, followed by BSE Capital Goods index (up 0.38 percent), BSE IT index (up 0.24 percent), BSE Auto index (up 0.14 percent), while the BSE Oil & Gas index and BSE Consumer Durables index slid 0.95 percent and 0.87 percent, respectively.
Traders saw domestic markets as overbought after indexes have gained for four consecutive weeks, hitting their highest intraday levels since August 20 on Friday.
“Nothing has changed as far as the market outlook is concerned. It is slightly overbought, so obviously some corrections have happened,” Deven Choksey, managing director at KR Choksey Securities said.
Overall market breadth for the day remained negative as advances to declines ratio for Nifty stood at 23:27 for the day.
On the global front, Chinese Central Bank cut key interest rates by 25 basis points late on Friday. The move marks the sixth time since November the Chinese ace bank has cut interest rates and the fourth time when the reduction has been across different amounts of deposits banks are required to hold as reserve. The measure could be attributed towards the downward pressure the economy is facing, and would help reducing the dire expectations with respect to the economy.
Asian peer markets posted mixed bag of performance with Nikkei 225 and Shanghai closed 0.65 percent and 0.50 percent up at 18,947 and 3,430 while Hang Seng closed 0.15 percent down at 23,116.
