Indian shares closed slightly lower on Tuesday as the holiday season before the year end kept investors at bay, with little direction coming from mixed overseas markets. Top private sector firm Reliance Industries and second-largest lender ICICI Bank led the decliners in the main index, while telecoms stocks gained ground following Monday's profit sales in India's leading mobile operators Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications.
Tata Steel, the world's seventh-largest steel maker and the largest shareholder in Riversdale, added 0.2 percent after it said late on Monday that it was yet to decide whether to counter Rio Tinto's $3.9 billion bid for the Africa-focused miner. Tata Steel also said it had no discomfort with Rio buying into Riversdale.
The main 30-share BSE Index closed 0.02 percent down at 20,025.42 points, but 19 of its components ended positive. The benchmark traded in a narrow 109-point range. The wider 50-share NSE index fell 0.04 percent to close at 5,996 points. "Many of the larger players are not participating in the markets because of the holiday season," said K.K. Mital, head of portfolio management at Globe Capital. "This should continue for the rest of the week and the market should hover in a range. You could see some stock-specific action, but the broader market should not move much," he said.
The main index is up 14.7 percent so far in 2010, helped by record foreign fund inflows and most investors are optimistic a robust growth outlook for the Indian economy bodes well for the domestic equities market in 2011.
Reliance Industries, India's most valuable firm, fell for a second straight day on Tuesday to close 0.8 percent down at 1,047.15 rupees. ICICI Bank ended 0.9 percent down at 1,113.70 rupees after rising 0.5 percent in the previous session. Top mobile phone operator Bharti Airtel, which had lost 2 percent on Monday, closed 0.2 percent higher at 342.20 rupees on Tuesday. Second-ranked mobile firm Reliance Comm added 1.7 percent after losing 3.6 percent on Monday.
Top Indian outsourcers Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys Technologies added 0.4 percent and 0.1 percent respectively, while third-ranked Wipro gained 1.3 percent on optimism about the sector's growth. In the broader market, 1,459 gainers were marginally ahead of 1,442 losers on relatively low volume of about 237 million shares.
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