Sensex, Nifty End Marginally Lower In Lackluster Trade

(RTTNews) - Indian shares ended Thursday's lackluster session slightly lower ahead of Christmas holiday weekend. After rising more than 1 percent to reach a three-week high yesterday, the benchmark BSE Sensex ended the session down 11.59 points or 0.04 percent at 25,838.71.

The broader Nifty index slid 4.90 points or 0.06 percent to 7,861.05 while the BSE mid-cap and small-cap indexes rose 0.3 percent and 0.5 percent respectively.

Analysts attributed the declines to profit taking and a lack of political consensus to push through key legislations, especially the GST and Real Estate Bills.

Among those that fell, Grasim, HCL Technologies, PNB and ICICI Bank lost around 1 percent each. Commodity-related stocks witnessed broad-based buying, with Hindalco, Cairn India and Vedanta climbing 2-3 percent.

Hindustan Construction Company rallied 3.2 percent after its infrastructure development arm completed 74 percent stake sale of Nirmal BOT.

Steel Strips Wheels soared 9 percent and Diamond Power Infrastructure jumped 2.8 percent after bagging new orders.

V-Mart Retail shares were locked at the 20 percent upper circuit limit after the RBI increased foreign holding limit in the company.

Biocon advanced 5.4 percent. The company has announced the introduction of an advanced novel therapy CIMIVIR-L for the treatment of Hepatitis C in India.

Idea Cellular added 1.1 percent after launching high-speed 4G services across South India.