IT, oil & gas pull Sensex down 133 points

The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex lost over 130 points during the end of the session today due to selling by funds and retail investors in IT, teck, oil & gas and auto stocks amid mixed Asian cues.

At 3.30 p.m., the Sensex was down 133.32 points or 0.74 per cent at 17,852.56 and the Nifty down 34.05 points or 0.63 per cent at 5,362.70.

Among the sectoral indices, IT was down 2.01 per cent, oil & gas 1.66 per cent, teck 1.39 per cent and auto 1.25 per cent. Consumer durables was up 0.77 per cent and power 0.09 per cent. Of the total 3,018 stocks traded, 958 advanced, 1,943 declined and 117 remained unchanged.

Volume toppers during the session were Tata Steel, RIL, SBI, ICICI Bank and Infosys. Major Sensex losers were Infosys, RIL, HDFC, TCS, ONGC, ITC and M&M. HDFC Bank, Bharti Airtel and Tata Steel were the major gainers.

The Sensex, which lost 146.36 points in yesterday’s trade after the RBI raised interest rates by 25 basis points to contain rising inflation, rebounded by 78.88 points to 18,064.76 in the opening session.

Similarly, the broad-based National Stock Exchange Nifty index also moved up by 24.40 points to 5,421.15 points