Nifty trades below 5900; smallcaps, midcaps down 1%

Indian equity benchmarks turned lower in afternoon trade after erasing morning gains of more than 200 points on the Sensex, weighed down by banks, technology, metals, oil & gas and power stocks.

The 30-share BSE Sensex lost 69.33 points to 19,340.36 while the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 26.40 points to 5,882.50. Meanwhile, the broader markets dropped more than benchmarks with the BSE Midcap and Smallcap losing over 1 percent.
 
In the second line shares, Puravankara Projects, Strides Arcolab, Indiabulls Real, State Bank of Tranvancore and Jyothy Labs were down 5-8 percent.

Among smallcaps, Sterling Holiday, TV18 Broadcast, Geodesic, Mastek and Bilcare dropped 5-6 percent.

However, Bartronics India gained as much as 19 percent to touch an intraday high of Rs 27.45 after its subsidiary bought 51 percent stake in the US based Systems America.

Banks stocks saw profit booking today with the BSE Bankex falling 0.4 percent. Country's largest lenders State Bank of India, ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank were down 0.3-0.9 percent.

State-owned power equipment maker BHEL and aluminium major Hindalco Industries plunged more than 3 percent.

Top software services exporter TCS went down 1.5 percent while its rival Infosys and Wipro declined 0.5 percent and 1.3 percent, respectively.

Oil & gas producers Reliance Industries and ONGC slipped 1 percent. Commercial vehicle major Tata Motors and telecom operator Bharti Airtel were down 1 percent too.

Meanwhile, FMCG major Hindustan Unilever, two-wheeler company Bajaj Auto and steel producer Jindal Steel gained 2 percent each.

Housing finance company HDFC was up 1 percent and cigarette major ITC gained 0.65 percent.

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