Mumbai: The market's initial record-settingspree came to a halt, with Sensex losing 140.94 points in late morning trade after most of the key sector stocks witnessed intense profit-booking. Barring IT, tech and health-care sectors, rest all the counters including realty, metal, power, oil & gas, banking, auto, consumer durables and FMCG saw profit-booking.
The market opened with sharp gain at 25,706.35 and reached an all-time new high of 25,711.11 before succumbing to profit-booking. This led to a low of 25,347.33 before quoting at 25,439.27 at 1005 hours, losing 140.94 points, or 0.55 per cent. The NSE 50-share Nifty also fell by 46.70 points, or 0.61 per cent, to 7,607.90 at 1005 hours.
Major losers were SSLT (3.79 pct), Hindalco (3.21 pct), Tata Power (2.95 per cent), BHEL (2.91 pct), Tata Steel (2.64 per cent), ONGC (2.12 per cent), NTPC (1.93 per cent), GAIL (1.53 per cent) and L&T (1.34 per cent). Meanwhile, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 536.68 crore yesterday, as per provisional data from the stock exchanges.
Asian stocks rose after record close of US stocks over economic optimism. Key benchmark indices in Taiwan, Hong Kong Indonesia, South Korea and China were up 0.29 to 0.78 per cent, while indices in Japan and Singapore fell 0.31 to 0.44 per cent.
