Sensex falls for 5th day, down by 30 points at over nine-week low

Mumbai: The benchmark Sensex on Tuesday succumbed to a flurry of selling in the last one hour to give up initial gains and extend its losses for the fifth straight session to end 30 points down at over nine-week low. The BSE 30-share barometer resumed better and rallied further to a high of 28,455.32, up by 263 points, on sustained capital inflows amid Asian Development Bank's (ADB) painting a positive outlook of India's economic growth.

However, a brief period of heavy selling mainly in auto, banking and IT shares at the fag-end pulled it down to a low of 28,130.09, before settling at 28,161.72, showing a fall of 30.30 points or 0.11 per cent. On March 24 fall takes the Sensex to its lowest closing in over nine weeks since January 16. Similarly, the 50-issue NSE Nifty moved erratically in a range of 8,627.75 and 8,535.85 before ending at 8,542.95, a net fall of 7.95 points or 0.09 per cent.

In five straight day, the NSE index has shed about 180 points. Traders said volatility was mainly due to rolling over of positions in the futures and options segment from the near month March to April series. March derivative contracts will expire on Thursday. On Sensex, scrips like, Tata Motors, HDFC Bank, Infosys, SBI, ICICI Bank, HUL and Hero MotoCorp suffered losses. Tata Motors suffered the most among Sensex stocks by plunging 3.27 per cent ahead of company's board meet on March 25 to consider rights issue.

However, rise in HDFC, Bharti Airtel, Sun Pharma, RIL, Dr Reddy's Lab and Wipro among others cushioned the fall to a major extent. Pharma stocks attracted buyers' attention after Sun Pharma and Ranbaxy got approval from the CCI for sale of seven brands to Emcure Pharma to comply with the fair trade watchdog's conditional nod for their USD 4-billion merger