Sensex falls for second day, drops 115 pts as profit-booking persists

Mumbai: The market continued to feel the ripple effect of lingering Brexit worries and a lacklustre Europe as the Sensex slumped 115 points, dragged down by a rush by investors to book profits in recent outperformers. Realty, power and banking counters saw much of the losses as investors felt that the recent rally is “overdone”. [caption id=“attachment_2418348” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Reuters[/caption] Globally, it was a mixed picture. While Europe was off to a lower start, the rest of Asia closed higher mirroring an overnight rally in the US on an unexpected services sector pick-up and signs of a revival in oil prices. “As markets take a pause ahead of earnings season, Brexit fears and shaky European markets continue to send shock waves. Yesterday’s US ADP report lent a positive bias early in the day, but market will wait for Friday data to recalibrate its expectations for a December US rate hike,” said Anand James, Chief Market Strategist, Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services. The 30-share index lost 114.77 points, or 0.41 per cent, to close at 28,106.21. The gauge had lost 114 points yesterday taking cues from a subdued Europe over talk of withdrawal of ECB stimulus measures and on a wave of profit-booking. The 50-share NSE Nifty remained listless too and ended down 34.40 points, or 0.39 per cent, at 8,709.55. In the Sensex pack, NTPC plunged the most by 2.42 per cent, followed by Cipla 2.30 per cent. Others that ended up in the red include M&M, Power Grid, ICICI Bank, SBI, Infosys and Dr Reddy’s, falling by up to 1.90 per cent. A total of 22 scrips in the Sensex team ended lower. Only 8 advanced. Realty sector took the maximum hit as it fell 1.48 per cent, followed by power (1.18 per cent), healthcare (0.99 per cent) and IT (0.87 per cent). Sentiment took a knock after selling picked up towards the fag end of the session, particularly in realty, power, banking and healthcare stocks, as investors rushed to lock in profits. Broader markets were no better, with the mid-cap and small-cap indices falling 0.56 per cent and 0.48 per cent, respectively. Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) purchased shares worth a net Rs 243.00 crore yesterday, showed provisional data. Key Asian indices such as Hong Kong’s Hang Seng and Japan’s Nikkei firmed up by up to 0.69 per cent. Chinese market was closed for a public holiday. Elsewhere, in Europe, UK’s FTSE slumped 0.34 per cent, Paris CAC 0.33 per cent and Germany’s DAX 0.36 per cent.