Mkts fail to hold onto value buying gains

Mumbai: Stock markets surrendered early gains and settled lower in volatile trade on Tuesday with BSE Sensex losing 166 points and Nifty ending below the 24,000 level due to fag-end selling in banking and telecom stocks.

Falling for the third straight day, the 30-share BSE Sensex settled at 78,593.07, down 166.33 points or 0.21 per cent, as 17 of its constituents declined and 13 gained. The index opened sharply higher and rallied further 1,092.68 points or 1.38 per cent to a high of 79,852.08 on value-buying by investors driven by a rebound in Japanese and other Asian stocks.

However, the barometer faltered later and hit a low of 78,496.57 as banking shares came under selling pressure ahead of the RBI policy decision on Thursday. Similarly, the NSE Nifty declined 63.05 points or 0.26 per cent to settle below the 24,000 level at 23,992.55. The index surged 327 points or 1.35 per cent to 24,382.60 in intra-day trade but failed to hold onto gains. Sensex and Nifty has declined for the third straight day, losing more than 4 per cent as weak jobs data fanned fears of possible recession in the US market. The market capitalization (Mcap) of NSE-listed companies declined to Rs435.80 lakh crore or $5.19 trn.

“The domestic market tried to rebound mirroring the Asian markets. However, momentum was short-lived and closed below the threshold level of 24,000.”