The Indian equity benchmarks erased early gains on Thursday to trade lower ahead of weekly expiry of index futures and option contracts later in the day.
The Sensex rose as much as 348 points from day's highest level and Nifty 50 index touched an intraday low of 17,840 after hitting high of 17,945.
Gains in ITC, State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, and HDFC Bank were offset with weakness in Maruti Suzuki, Mahindra - Mahindra, Infosys and Larsen - Toubro.As of 9:43 am, the Sensex was down 44 points at 59,964 and Nifty 50 index fell 25 points to 17,873.Overnight, all three major United States indices ended the day lower, as investors processed whether strong consumer activity in the face of rising inflation could spur the Fed to ease back on stimulus faster than once thought.The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.58 per cent, the S-P 500 lost 0.26 per cent and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.33 per cent.The MSCI world equity index, which tracks shares in 45 nations, fell 0.29 per cent.Back home, eight of 15 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading lower led by the Nifty Auto index's over 1 per cent fall.
Nifty IT, Pharma, Media, Metal and Oil - Gas indices also fell between 0.5-1 per cent.On the other hand, select FMCG, banking and consumer durable indexes were trading higher.Mid- and small-cap shares also succumbed to selling pressure as Nifty Midcap 100 index declined 0.4 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index fell 0.2 per cent.Tata Motors was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose 2.31 per cent to Rs 518.
Tech Mahindra, Hero MotoCorp, Divi's Labs, ONGC, Dr Reddy's Labs, HCL Technologies, Cipla, Eicher Motors, Tata Steel and UPL also fell between 1-1.45 per cent.On the flipside Hindalco, Bajaj Finserv, State Bank of India, ITC, HDFC Bank, Power rid and Grasim Industries were among the gainers.