Sensex, Nifty close flat; TCS top loser with 5 percent

MUMBAI: The benchmark BSE Sensex gave up its early gains to close lower by 61.16 points at 33,856.78 today mainly due to profit booking in the last hour of the trade after recent gains.

The broader NSE Nifty managed to end higher for the second day at 10,426.85, up by 5.45 points or 0.05 percent after shuttling between 10,478.60 and 10,377.85, intra-day.

Shares of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) fell by 5.22 percent to Rs 2,892.45 following reports that its promoter Tata Sons is planning to raise around Rs 8,200 crore by selling a stake in the IT major.

Sustained selling by domestic institutional investors (DIIs) put pressure on select counters led by IT and tech stocks.

Despite, better-than-estimated consumer price inflation eased traders fears of near-term interest rate hikes by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

Retail inflation surprisingly slowed for the second consecutive month to 4.4 percent in February from 5.1 percent in January and 5.2 percent in December.

Factory output grew at a robust pace for the third straight month, at 7.5 percent in January.

Overseas, most Asian stocks ended mixed and European equities opened slightly up as investors awaited the release of the US inflation data later in the day for clues on the pace of US Fed rate hike, brokers said.

Meanwhile, domestic institutional investors (DIIs) sold shares worth Rs 464.59 crore on a net basis, while foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares to the tune of Rs 374.65 crore yesterday.