Mumbai: September 4, 2008 - Traders resorted to booking profits on Thursday after a smart rally in previous session. There was also caution ahead of the outcome of two-day NSG meet to discuss India-US nuclear deal. Global cues were also not supportive as major stock markets were lower.

At 10:15 am, Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensex was at 14,855.91, down 193.95 points or 1.29 per cent. The benchmark touched a high of 14,911.49 and low of 14,847.78 in early trade.

National Stock Exchange’s Nifty was at 4430.75, down 1.63 per cent or 73.25 points. It touched a high of 4,514.60 and low of 4,421.95.

BSE Midcap Index was 0.40 per cent lower at 5,813.73 and BSE Smallcap Index was flat at 6,970.14.

“In our view, domestic inflation is topping out and hence we could see the Nifty rallying to 5000 levels by next month. In the event of positive news flows on inflation numbers, we might see some rallies in real estate and other interest sensitive stocks. We thus expect to go long at every level in the market with a target of 5,000 on the Nifty,” said Religare Securities.
BSE Realty, Power and Bankex, the major gainers in last session were witnessing selling pressure.

Buying was seen in information technology stocks as rupee continued to remain above 44 mark. At 10:20 am, the partially convertible rupee was at 44.47 down 4 paise against the dollar. BSE IT Index was up 0.20 per cent.

Biggest Sensex losers were Sterlite Industries (-3.25%), Ranbaxy Laboratories (-3.03%), Reliance Infrastructure (-2.56%), BHEL (-2.36%) and NTPC (-2.06%).

Mahindra & Mahindra (0.83%), Bharti Airtel (0.37%) and Grasim Industries (0.22%) were the only gainers in the 30-share index.

Market breadth on BSE showed 615 declines and 487 advances.

US markets closed mixed Wednesday on concerns of economic slow-down. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.15 per cent, Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 0.19 per cent and Nasdaq Composite Index ended 0.66 per cent lower.

Asian markets were in the red tracking declines in US markets. The Nikkei was down 0.29 per cent, Hang Seng lost 0.80 per cent, Kospi fell 0.42 per cent and Straits Times dropped 1.91 per cent.

Oil prices hovered around $109 a barrel on Thursday as traders weighed concerns over slowing demand from major consumer countries against further hurricane threats to the US oil sector.