Snapping its three day winning streak, the S&P BSE Sensex fell 58 points on Tuesday, as investors remained cautious over the second quarter results of domestic companies.
The Sensex closed at 27,306 points, down 0.21%, while the 50-share Nifty fell by 13 points, or 0.16%, to end at 8,261.
"After enjoying three consecutive days of gains, the Indian equity market took a breather on Tuesday amid some profit booking around the 8300 mark. Indices failed to hold on to early gains as the Indian rupee lost strength against the US Dollar. The rupee yet again crossed the Rs65 per dollar mark in intra-day. However, the IT stocks were back in the limelight post the weakness in the rupee," said Amar Ambani, Head of Research, IIFL.
Muted global markets failed to lend support the domestic stock markets. Tracking the little gains in the US stock markets, Asian markets saw a mixed trend. While Japan's Nikkei closed 75% higher, Hong Kong's Hang Seng was down 86 points.
"We are in the consolidation phase. Probably, over the next 4-6 weeks we will be experiencing consolidation where the market would fluctuate between ups and downs without doing much," Jyotivardhan Jaipuria, an independent market expert, told The Economic Times.
Meanwhile, global rating agency Standard & Poor's has kept its rating for India unchanged at the lowest investment grade "BBB-minus" with a "stable" outlook, citing low income and weak government fiscal position.
The agency projected the Indian economy to grow by 7.4% this year. It expects the average growth of the economy to remain "just under" 8% between 2015 and 2018.
Among the BSE sectoral indices, Power and IT were the top gainers, while Metal index was the top loser.
While Reliance Power (5%), Tata Power (2.1%), TCS (1.5%), Infosys (1.3%) and Tata Motors (1.2%) were the top gainers among the Sensex stocks, Tata Steel (3.1%), Hindalco (2.7%), Cipla (2.2%), Reliance Capital (2.1%) and ONGC (1.8%) were the top losers.
