Sensex, Nifty pare losses; BPCL, BHEL, L&T outperform

The BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty pared some losses due to buying in BHEL, L&T and Bharti Airtel. Even banks, technology, metal and oil & gas showed some recovery from the day's low. The market breadth too improved - about three shares declined for every share rising on the National Stock Exchange, which was 6:1 at one point of time.

The NSE benchmark managed to get back above the 5000 level quite comfortably, which dropped 64.50 points to 5,022.35. Meanwhile, the BSE benchmark fell 200.46 points or 1.2% to 16,630.62.

The Indian rupee appreciated sharply after hitting an intraday low of 53.76 a dollar, which gained 27 paise at 53.20 a dollar led by RBI's intervention in forex market.

State-owned capital goods major Bharat Heavy Electricals jumped 2.5% while engineering and construction company L&T rose 0.8%.

Country's largest telecom operator Bharti Airtel and drug maker Cipla went up 0.5% each.

Shares of oil marketing companies topped the buying list due to steep fall in crude oil prices since Friday. BPCL shot up 6.5% while HPCL and IOC gained 3-3.5%. However, Cairn India tanked 4.5%.

Index heavyweight Reliance Industries and public sector lender State Bank of India lost over 2%.

Private sector lenders ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank declined 1.65% and 3%, respectively. Software services provider TCS and Infosys were down around 1% while Wipro turned positive.

On the global front, European markets too trimmed losses - France's CAC and Germany's DAX slipped over a percent.