Sensex falls by 53 pts at close

Paring early gains, the BSE benchmark Sensex today closed lower by 53 points at one-week low of 18,579.50 points on selling in IT and oil stocks, including RIL and Infosys, bucking positive global trends.

The BSE 30-share barometer resumed strong and improved further to a high of 18,735.95, up by almost 104 points, on the back of firm Asian cues.

Brokers said selling pressure in refinery and IT stocks mainly weighed on the market. Investors squared up their pending positions following monthly expiry in the derivatives segment, they added.

Heavy-weight Reliance Industries dropped by 1.65 per cent and Infosys by 1.47 per cent. The two scrips carry nearly 18 per cent weight on Sensex.

The NSE 50-issue Nifty also eased by 13.95 points or 0.25 per cent to settle at 5,649.50 points.

"The Nifty support stands at 5640-5630 and if broken we should be prepared to see 5450 in October first week and then probably we will head towards new high in October itself," CNI Research CMD Kishor P Ostwal said.

ICICI Bank, TCS, ONGC, Tata Motors, Bharti Airtel, Sterlite Industries, Hero MotoCorp and BHEL suffered losses up to 2.93 per cent. However rise in some of the FMCG and capital goods scrips helped to mitigate the Sensex fall.

Larsen &Toubro, ITC, HUL and SBI closed with gains.

Asian stocks ended higher today after the People's Bank of China infused a record amount of liquidity into the banking system this week to bolstered economic confidence, resulting the Shanghai Composite index to close sharply up by 2.50 per cent.

Other indices from Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan rose between 0.18 per cent and 1.14 per cent.

European markets too were quoting up in their afternoon trading with all eyes setting on Spanish government's presentation of its 2013 budget late today and economic

... contd.

ALSO READ

IT watchdog probing breach in ATM heist

RBI gears up for plastic notes as 20% paper bills get soiled

Home prices near most affordable levels in over 30 yrs: HDFC

Nokia sees growth in sales of Lumia smartphones in India