Sensex falls over 200 points, Nifty trades below 17,800; Alok Industries, Zensar Tech fall up to 4%; Hatsun Agro jumps 9%

Indian equity benchmarks came off their record highs and traded lower in early deals on Thursday, dragged by technology and automobile stocks. Investors would also be focusing on the special trading session to ascertain the price for Reliance Industries' financial services business and corporate earnings. The 30-share BSE Sensex pack fell 216 points or 0.32 per cent to trade at 66,882, while the broader NSE Nifty moved 66 points or 0.33 per cent down to trade at 19,768. Although, mid- and small-cap shares were positive as Nifty Midcap 100 rose 0.13 per cent and small-cap edged 0.09 per cent up.

"The demerger of Jio Financial Services from RIL and the Q1 results of Infosys, HUL and a host of mid-cap IT companies can cause a lot of price action in the market today," said VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

Global equities advanced amid rising hopes that the US Federal Reserve is nearing the end of its monetary policy tightening. Asian markets edged higher.

Back home, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought Rs 1,165 crore worth of Indian equities on a net basis during the previous session, while domestic investors sold Rs 2,135 crore of shares, as per provisional NSE data.

Seven out of the 15 sector gauges -- compiled by the National Stock Exchange -- were trading in the red today. Sub-indexes Nifty IT and Nifty Auto were underperforming the NSE platform by falling as much as 1.08 per cent and 0.45 per cent, respectively.

On the stock-specific front, Infosys was the top loser in the Nifty pack as the stock cracked 1.83 per cent to trade at Rs 1,448. UltraTech Cement, Hero MotoCorp, HDFC Life and Bajaj Finance fell up to 1.23 per cent.

In contrast, Dr Reddy's, Sun Pharma, Hindalco, SBI and ICICI Bank were among the top gainers.

The overall market breadth was strong as 1,623 shares were advancing while 1,212 were declining on BSE.

On the 30-share BSE index, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, L&T, HCL Tech, Bajaj Finance and ITC were among the major contributors to the fall. Also, Alok Industries, Zensar Technologies, Vaibhav Global and Amara Raja Batteries slipped up to 4.18 per cent.

In contrast, Hatsun Agro Product, Newgen Software Technologies, Bajaj Hindusthan Sugar and Borosil Renewables jumped up to 8.95 per cent.

On Wednesday, Sensex had gained 302 points or 0.45 per cent to settle at 67,097, while Nifty had added 84 points or 0.42 per cent to end the day at 19,833.

Nifty outlook

"Nifty extended the gains further ahead with the strong run continuing making new highs each day closing above the 19,800 zone with bias maintained strong and as said earlier, further rise anticipated for our next target of 20,000 in the coming sessions. The overall sentiment has turned optimistic with majority of the frontline stocks along with the broader indices participating actively to pull the index to new heights. The support for the day is seen at 19,700 levels while the resistance is seen at 20,000 levels," said Vaishali Parekh, Vice-President - Technical Research at Prabhudas Lilladher.

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