The Sensex and Nifty pared their initial gains and were trading marginally down due to heavy selling in oil & gas, PSU, consumer durables and banking stocks.

According to provisional data, domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought shares worth Rs 584.88 crore, while foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) dumped equities worth Rs 632.14 crore yesterday.

At 11.50 a.m., the 30-share BSE index Sensex was down 49.82 points or 0.16 per cent at 31,621.89 and the 50-share NSE index Nifty was down 16.8 points or 0.17 per cent at at 9,998.10.

Among BSE sectoral indices, healthcare index gained the most by 0.79 per cent, followed by realty 0.68 per cent,IT 0.25 per cent and power 0.08 per cent. On the other hand, oil & gas index fell 0.9 per cent, followed by PSU 0.54 per cent, consumer durables 0.53 per cent and banking 0.18 per cent.

Top five Sensex gainers were M&M (+1.47%), NTPC (+1.19%), Cipla (+0.84%), Kotak Bank (+0.63%) and Coal India (+0.56%), while the major losers were State Bank of India (-1.34%), PowerGrid (-1.17%), ICICI Bank (-1.05%), Hero MotoCorp (-0.81%) and Axis Bank (-0.8%).

Asian shares were a tad firmer on Thursday, taking their cues from strong US data although holiday-thinned trade and uncertainty about the impact of recent hurricanes on the US economy are likely to keep investors cautious.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia–Pacific shares outside Japan was almost flat while Japan’s Nikkei ticked up 0.1 per cent.