Sensex down nearly 22 points on profit-booking

MUMBAI, Sept 20 (PTI): Profit-booking yesterday pulled the Sensex down by 22 points to close at 27,090.42 on losses in capital goods, refinery, realty and auto sectors, but recent gains helped the BSE benchmark log its sixth straight week of  gains, the longest winning run in over two years.
The 30-share BSE Sensex resumed on a better note and rallied further to a high of 27,247.17, up by 135 points, on the back of firm Asian trends prompted by overnight rally on Wall Street.
Soon after, however, it met with strong resistance at higher levels and fell back to settle at 27,090.42, a minor fall of 21.79 points or 0.08 per cent.
"Markets continued to move in a narrow range after witnessing high intraday volatility earlier during the day where key indices alternately swung between positive and negative zone," said Jayant Manglik, President-retail distribution, Religare Securities.
In previous two days, Sensex had flared up 619.70 points or 2.34 per cent, which helped the Sensex on a weekly basis gain 29.37 points and register sixth straight week of rise.
Meanwhile, the wide-based 50-issue CNX Nifty of the NSE added 6.70 points, or 0.08 per cent, to end at 8,121.45.
Country's largest software services exporters, TCS, was the top gainer from the Sensex pack with a rise of 2.71 per cent after Moody's Investors Service upgraded ratings of half a dozen Tata Group firms.
Other Tata group companies like Tata Elxsi, Tata Global Services, Tata Investment Corp, Tata Metaliks, Tata Sponge, Tata Teleservices closed up between 2.21-13.58 per cent.
Fall in the heavyweights like L&T, ONGC, RIL, SBI, HUL, M&M and Hero MotoCorp mainly weighed on sentiment.
However, some IT and pharma counters attracted good buying interest and restricted the fall.
Globally, Asian stocks closed higher between 0.04 per cenr and 1.58 per cent following the US stocks ending strong after data showed fewer Americans filed for jobless claims lifting US benchmark indices to record highs.
European markets too were quoting firm in their late morning deals as Scotland voted to reject independence from the UK. The CAC (France) was up by 0.48 per cent, the DAX (Germany) by 0.81 per cent and the FTSE by 0.62 per cent (UK).
Meanwhile, FPIs/FIIs sold shares worth Rs 90.75 million on Thursday, as per provisional data with stock exchanges.
Jignesh Chaudhary, Head of Research, Veracity Broking Services said: "The ongoing crises in Ukraine and Gaza has been overlooked as recent better-than-expected data released from different countries has improved investor confidence in the stocks which has lead to a global rally."
In Sensex, Cipla gained over 1.2 per cent after the firm announced that it has signed an agreement with US based Salix.
Overall, 13 Sensex scrips ended in the red while others concluded in the green. Major losers were L&T (2.51 per cent),
ONGC (2.26 per cent), SBI (1.92 per cent), HUL (1.73 per cent), Hero Motocorp (1.57 per cent), Tata Motors (1.26 per cent), M&M (1.14 per cent) and RIL (0.99 per cent).
Besides Cipla, major Sensex gainers included Maruti 1.29 per cent, HDFC 1.08 per cent and Wipro 0.98 per cent.
Among the S&P BSE sectoral indices, Capital Goods fell by 1.89 per cent followed by Oil&Gas 1.22 per cent, Realty 0.81 per cent and Auto 0.70 per cent while IT rose by 1.39 per cent and Teck gained 1.13 per cent.
Total market breadth was negative as 1,600 stocks closed in the red while 1,450 finished with gains.