After rising over 260 points, benchmark BSE Sensex erased all gains and settled 30 points down today to over nine-week low of 28,161.72 on fag-end selling in auto, banking and IT shares.

Losses in Tata Motors, HDFC Bank and Infosys weighed on markets, which fell for the fifth straight session.

Stock brokers said besides caution ahead of March expiry in the derivatives segment on Thursday, selling by mutual funds to meet redemption pressure in view of ending financial year 2014-15 also dampened trading sentiment.

Market Outlook by Vinod Nair, Head-Fundamental Research, Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services
The F&O expiry for the last month (march) of FY15 continues to impact the volatility. An emerging trend is likely to be developed near the expiry. Historically March-April has higher volatility. We are also seeing impact on Banks which are likely to have a poor Q4 results due to NPAs restructuring. We believe that these are phase of the long term bull market and suggest retail investors to add quality stocks on dip. Sectors which can be considered are Banks, Consumer durables, Auto and Capital Goods.

In a highly volatile trade, the 30-share index rose to the day’s high of 28,455.32 points on the back of recovery in selective bluechip stocks. However, a late sell-off pushed the index to the day’s low of 28,130.09 before settling 30.30 points, or 0.11 per cent, down at over 9-week low 28,161.72.

The gauge has now lost 574.66 points in the five sessions.

On similar lines, the 50-share NSE Nifty ended with a loss of 7.95 points, or 0.09 per cent, to settle at 8,542.95 after trading between 8,627.75 and 8,535.85.

Tata Motors suffered the most among Sensex stocks by plunging 3.27 per cent ahead of company’s board meet tomorrow to consider rights issue.

Other laggards include Hindalco, Hindustan Unilever, SBI, Tata Steel, Hero MotoCorp, ICICI Bank and TCS.

Among the 30 Sensex constituents, 16 scrips, including Bharti Airtel, GAIL, NTPC and Sesa Sterlite, gained.

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. Sun Pharma rose 1.55 per cent. Dr Reddy’s and Cipla too rose.

Market Wrap Up by Alex Mathews, Head Research, Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services
After trading in a positive zone market ended in the negative territory with marginal losses in the last part of the trading session.  Investors were covering their long positions ahead of expiry, and few of them started rolling over their positions to April series kept the market subdued.
Nifty closed at 8542 down around 7 points.  The market breadth was negative as there were seen 1087 stocks advancing against 1717 stocks declining. The Nifty volatility index, India VIX stood at 13.6725 down around 4.18%.
The mid-cap and small-cap sectors were underperforming the broader markets, ended down around 0.44% and 0.64% respectively.
The major sectorial gainers for the day were Healthcare and Consumer Durables, which ended up around 1.84% and 0.68% respectively. On the other end, the losers were Auto and Banking sector which closed down around 1.17% and 0.61% respectively.
In the stocks’ front, the losers were Tata Motors and Hindalco which closed down around 3.56% and 1.99% respectively whereas the gainers were Lupin and BPCL which closed up around 5.33% and 3.33% respectively.
The FIIs were buyers in the cash markets segment, bought shares worth Rs 417.41 crore on Monday, 23 March 2015. On the other hand the DIIs were also net buyers on 23 March 2014, bought shares worth Rs 403.91 crore as per the provisional data from the stock exchanges.
The European markets were little changed after the data showed that German manufacturing data rose more than the estimate. The US index futures remained mixed.

Shares of Jindal Steel and Power recovered by 1.20 per cent after Delhi High Court yesterday directed the Centre to maintain status quo on a Chhattisgarh mine, the bid for which by the company had been cancelled by the government.

Sectorwise, the BSE Auto index suffered the most by losing 1.17 per cent, followed by Banking index (0.61 per cent), IT index (0.50 pc), Realty index (0.40 pc) and FMCG (0.30 pc).

Meanwhile, Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 417.41 crore and domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 403.91 crore yesterday as per provisional data.