Indices open flat; Nifty slips below 8800-mark

Equity markets were dragged lower on Tuesday by profit-booking coupled with negative global cues and caution ahead of major global financial events.

Heavy selling pressure was witnessed in automobile, capital goods and banking stocks.

The BSE index fell 111.30 points or 0.39 per cent to 28,523.20, having risen as much as 0.22 per cent earlier in the session.

Mumbai: Building on gains for the fourth straight session, the benchmark Sensex rallied over 72 points to 28,671.06 and the NSE Nifty again went past the 8,800-mark in early trade today on sustained buying by participants tracking positive Asian indices.

However, the BSE market breadth was tilted in favour of the bulls – with 868 advances and 566 declines.

At 09:25 am, the 30-share index was trading at 28,593, down 40.90 points, while broad-based 50-share index was quoting 8,791, down 16.85 points.

“However, the markets capped gains as investors were reluctant to chase prices higher”. All the major benchmark indices closed flat with negative bias on September 19. But profit booking and other developments pared the gains.

Asian stocks traded mixed this morning and oil prices slipped on fears of oversupply and anxiety over waning demand, while safe-haven assets like yen and gold strengthened on a weaker dollar.

In terms of investments, provisional data with the exchanges showed that the foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold stocks worth Rs 1,146.93 crore, whereas the domestic institutional investors (DIIs) purchased scrip worth Rs 777.52 crore.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.2 percent after major US indexes ended a choppy session almost flat on Monday.