Sensex sheds 121 points; rising rupee hits IT stocks

Stock markets today snapped its four-day upward move with the benchmark Sensex losing 121 points on selling pressure in blue-chips like Infosys and Reliance Industries.

The 30-share index closed at 17,590.17, a drop of 121.18 points or 0.68%. Nineteen components of Sensex ended up as losers.

The 50-share Nifty index of the National Stock Exchange fell 0.76% to 5,262.45 points.

In four days of sustained gains, the barometer index had gained 300 points or 1.72% to touch its 25-month high of 17,793 points yesterday.

Traders attributed today's fall to mostly profit-booking after the market scaled its highest level.

IT stocks took a beating with the rupee strengthening against the US dollar. The counter declined for the third straight day on concerns of rising rupee, which is currently hovering around 45 a dollar mark, its 18-month high level.

Among the frontline IT stocks, TCS declined 1.32% and Wipro 1.92%.

HDFC Bank, however, was the biggest loser at 3%, followed by Infosys at 2.64% and Larsen & Toubro at 1.18%.

Reliance Industries, which has the maximum weight in the index, slipped 0.55%.

"Market went down on profit-booking. Today's decline is a correction and profit taking may continue for some more time," Bonanza Portfolio assistant vice president Avinash Gupta said.

Analysts said the fall was scripted by all-round selling by domestic institutions as well as FIIs, who have put in about $3.8 billion in the Indian stocks in March alone.

Other major loser among the Sensex companies include Tata Steel (1.14%), HDFC (1%), Sun Pharma (2.31%) and SBI (0.59%).

However, some of the heavyweights bucked the trend and managed to close in the positive. ICICI Bank moved up 0.73%, DLF 3.23% and Tata Motors 2.25%.

Shares of Bharti Airtel settled marginally higher by 0.02% amid anticipation that the $10.7-billion deal with Zain  Telecom for its African assets would be signed today.

Analysts said weak European markets also could have added to the profit booking in the domestic market. Britain's FTSE was trading 0.08% down in the mid day trade. However, Asian cues were positive as China's Shanghai was up 0.15% and Japan's Nikkei gained 1.01%.