Sensex falls for second day on profit selling

Capital goods, auto and power stocks were instrumental in bringing down the Bombay Stock Exchange Sensex for the second session and the barometer dipped below 15,000 after a good start amid a weak opening at European bourses and concerns over an unfriendly monsoon.

The Sensex, which had lost 128.52 in the previous day's trading, fell further by 219.37 points at 14,843.12 with financial stocks led by ICICI Bank losing 1.44% paring a 21% advance since last week after the government revealed plans for more reforms in the banking sector.

The key index had touched the day's high of 15,369.42 and a low of 14,786.58 points.

Similarly, the 50-share National Stock Exchange index Nifty lost 70.20 points at 4,398.90. It oscillated between 4,557.95 and 4,380.45.

The 30-share BSE index had increased more than 9.9% since the beginning of last week after the government said it will overhaul the banking and pension fund industries and allow greater foreign investment in insurance.

Bonanza Portfolio assistant vice-president Avinash Gupta said, "The profit booking seen yesterday continued today also. Even the good results from Wipro could not prevent the markets from going down.

European markets and US index futures were trading in the red this afternoon, adversely affecting market sentiment.

Foreign institutional investors' net sale in equity was Rs 250.86 crore on the BSE and NSE on July 21.

The capital goods sector suffered the most, losing 1.87% to 12,141.46, followed by the auto sector index, with 1.61% at 5,077.90. The power index fell by 1.60% to 2,783.87.

The IT sector index fell 1.60% to 3,634.99 as Tata Consultancy was down 2.42% to Rs 465.85, Wipro by 1.52% to Rs 451 and Infosys Technologies by 1.23% to Rs 1,919.20.

The teck index fell 1.54% to 2,758.42, metals 1.45% to 11,345.61, healthcare 1.30% to 3,739.06, banking 1.23% to 8,265.96 and oil and gas 0.75% to 9,365.64.

With selling pressure spread widely, the midcap index fell 0.97% to 5,174.74 and the smallcap index by 0.35% to 5,817.36.