Sensex falls 133 pts pre-RBI meet

The BSE Sensex fell to one-week low of 18,625.34, down 133.29 points, pulled down by RIL, ICICI Bank, HUL and ITC as investors booked profits ahead of next week's RBI monetary policy amid mixed corporate quarterly results and weak trends in global equities.

While ICICI Bank and HUL logged in profits for the July-September quarter of the current fiscal, Punjab National Bank and GAIL reported losses.

In all, 12 of the 13 sectoral indices closed with losses of between 0.22 per cent and 2.84 per cent; only auto index gained 0.81 pc on hopes of higher sales this festive season.

Fresh offloading by FIIs also aided the downtrend. FIIs sold shares worth Rs 551.34 crore yesterday as per provisional data with the stock exchanges.

The BSE 30-stock index, Sensex, resumed lower on weak Asian cues and remained in the negative terrain throughout the day. The trend was aided by sluggish openings in the European equities. It closed at over one-week low of 18,625.34, a fall of 133.29 points or 0.71 per cent.

Similarly, the NSE 50-issue index, Nifty, dipped by 41 points or 0.72 per cent to over one-week low of 5,664.30.

Barring Singapore, which was closed today, other Asian markets finished with marked losses amid weak quarterly earnings by corporates in the region.

Key indices in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea were down between 1.21 per cent and 1.76 per cent. European stocks too were trading weak in the afternoon deals on concerns over corporate earnings.

Meanwhile, investors were also waiting for the US growth data due later. Standard & Poor's reportedly downgraded BNP Paribas SA and other 10 France banks which also kept market under pressure.

The CAC (France) was down by 0.54 pc, the DAX (Germany) by 0.43 pc and the FTSE (UK) by 0.61 pc.

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