Know how the day began at Dalal street

Indian stocks snapped a 6-day advance on Thursday as traders booked partial profit on some blue chips even as the demand for beaten down metal stocks continued to be strong. Cement, Fertiliser and Technology stocks came under selling pressure.

The Nifty fell 23 points to 8,154 in early deals. ITC, Bosch, Cairn, Idea and ICICI Bank saw a negative tick on prices while Vedanta, Wipro, Infosys, Tata Motors and HCL Tech remained buoyant. The Nifty saw an Advance-Decline Ratio of 23/26 and Tata Motors, HCL Tech and Axis Bank were the most active stocks on the exchange.

The broader market, too, came under the hammer. As a consequence, the CNX 100, CNX 200 and CNX 500 Indices lost about 0.2 percent each. The Mid cap and the Small Cap benchmarks were flat. The trend in the sectoral space was mixed with modest gains seen on CNX IT Index and CNX Auto Index while CNX FMCG and CNX PSU Bank slipped in trade.

Sentiment slipped on the Bombay Stock Exchange with the Sensex shaving off 102 points, or 0.4 percent, to 26,934 points. ITC, Lupin, Larsen and GAIL saw a shade of red while Tata Steel, Maruti, Hindalco and Bajaj Auto inched up in trade.

Bears are in control of the derivatives space at least in the first 45 minutes of trade. As a consequence, 109 futures dropped compared with 55 that rose. Jindal Steel, Motherson Sumi and Just Dial futures advanced strongly while Idea, LIC Housing and ITC slipped in trade. The heaviest losses were seen on the telecom, infrastructure and banking futures.

Elgi Equipment, Ruchi Soya and Castex Technologies were among the most traded stocks on the volume buzzers list.

(Image credits: Indiatimes)