Indian stock markets were trading lower in the afternoon session on Thursday, weighed down by losses in realty, auto and power sector shares.
The 30-share BSE Sensex declined 0.48 percent or 96.30 points to 19,897.89, and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 0.69 percent or 41.50 points to 6,012.80.
Tata Motors shares plunged more than 5 percent after the company said that its Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) subsidiary was likely to report a lower profit margin in the October-December quarter compared with the previous two quarters.
Among the sectoral indices in BSE, realty and auto sectors plunged 3.21 percent and 2.81 percent, respectively, while FMCG and IT sectors gained 0.81 percent and 0.62 percent, respectively.
In the realty sector, Sobha Developers plunged 4.60 percent and Unitech fell 3.70 percent while HDIL tumbled 14.91 percent. HDIL shares slumped nearly 30 percent in the last three sessions after the company promoters and Citigroup sold partial stake earlier this week.
DLF shares declined 0.68 percent despite the news that the company stock was upgraded to “buy” rating from “neutral” rating at Goldman Sachs.
The overall market breadth was negative with 677 advanced against 1894 declines. The BSE's Midcap Index plunged 1.70 percent to 6,906.03 and Smallcap Index fell 1.52 percent to 7,136.69. CNX midcap Index declined 1.76 percent and CNX IT gained 0.56 percent.
Meanwhile, Asian stock markets were mixed on Thursday after a private survey showed that manufacturing activities in the world's second largest economy improved for the fifth straight month in January. The HSBC Flash Purchasing Managers Index (PMI), a measure of the nation-wide manufacturing, gained to 51.9 in January from December’s final reading of 51.5 and also topped analysts’ estimation of 51.7 reading. .
