After a day of intense selling across the board, the domestic equity market tried to stabilise itself on the back of strong advance tax figures of major corporate houses, indicating impressive third quarter numbers.
However, selling in the late hours of trading resulted in the 30-share Sensex to close the day at 19,079.64 points, down 181.71 points or 0.94%. On the other hand, the broader Nifty closed the day at 5742.30 points, a fall of 34.7 points or 0.60%.
Ambareesh Baliga, VP, Karvy Stock Broking, said, ?The domestic equity market was highly volatile throughout the day and we can expect further downside as global factors have turned negative and FII?s are reducing their exposure. Investors have also turned cautious on the mid and small cap counters, which had witnessed good run in the last one month.?
Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) continued to sell heavily on the domestic equity market. As per the provisional figures released by the stock exchanges, FIIs were net sellers worth Rs 2,736.48 crore on Tuesday while domestic institutional investors were net buyers worth Rs 659.15 crore.
The market breadth remained under pressure throughout the day with 1,672 stocks declining compared to advance by 1,225 on the BSE on Tuesday. Among the Sensex stocks, constituents 18 declined while 12 advanced.
Asian markets showed mixed trends with Hang Seng, Seoul Composite and Straits Times advancing while Nikkei 225, Taiwan Weighted, Shanghai Composite and Jakarta Composite closed the day lower.
BSE healthcare index was the sole gainer among the BSE sectoral indices, up 63.12 points or 1.50% to close at 4,261.32 points.