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Trading began on a strong note, witnessing a smart rebound after a six-day sell-off, on heavy buying across the board along with short-covering and supportive global cues. Stable currency market and overnight positive comments from Finance Minister P Chidambaram on reform front, too, weighed in early trade.
The key index suddenly turned choppy in mid-afternoon as investors resorted to profit taking at higher levels and due to nervousness after Goldman Sachs downgraded its rating on Indian stocks to "underweight" on concerns about delayed growth recovery and inaction from the RBI.
The market made several attempts to regain its strength, but it failed and remained under intense selling pressure due to heavy unwinding in energy, auto, FMCG, metal, capital goods and technology stocks. Banking stocks, however, saw good buying support after recent selling.
Meanwhile, Financial Technologies share crashed by a whopping 65.50 per cent to close at fresh all-time low of Rs 191.65 after the National Spot Exchange (NSEL), its subsidiary, suspended trading in all one-day forward contracts, except e-series contracts.
The rest of Asia hit multi-month highs as investors breathed a sigh of relief after the US Fed reassured markets it would keep its accommodative monetary policy "for a considerable time", easing near-term uncertainty. Stronger-than-expected US second-quarter GDP data along with surprise expansion in Chinese manufacturing activity also lifted sentiment.
JP Associates, Bank of Baroda, DLF, Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd, BPCL, PNB, BHEL, IDFC, Coal India and M&M were the top Nifty losers. Top gainers included Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, HUL, Kotak Bank, PowerGrid, HDFC, IndusInd Bank, GAIL, Jindal Steel and Maruti. Turnover in the cash segment dropped to Rs 12,992.01 crore from Rs 14,683.19 crore yesterday. A total of 7,681.97 lakh shares changed hands in 76,12,067 trades. The market capitalisation stood at Rs 60,39,198 crore.