Indian shares eased slightly on Tuesday, as caution crept in amid extremely weak global cues. Also, with the 72-hour deadline given to the UPA government by Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee for withdrawing the decision on FDI ending today, investors waited to see what would happen to the ruling Congress-led coalition government.
It is widely expected that Mamata Banerjee will withdraw ministers from the government and give outside support to it. Mamata has already made it clear that she doesn't want the government to fall.
The benchmark BSE Sensex ended the session down 46 points or 0.25 percent at 18,496, while the broader Nifty index fell by 10 points or 0.18 percent to 5,600. However, with the feel-good factor of last week's reform measures from New Delhi continuing, the BSE mid-cap and small-cap indexes ended the day up 0.9 percent and 0.7 percent, respectively.
Oil/gas, IT, healthcare, metal and FMCG stocks led the decliners, while PSUs, capital goods stocks, banks and realtors witnessed stock-specific buying.
Among the prominent decliners in the Sensex pack, IT stocks like TCS and Wipro fell 3-4 percent, aluminum maker Hindalco slid 2.1 percent, energy giant Reliance Industries declined 2 percent and Tata Motors, India's largest automaker, lost 1.3 percent. Among those that fared well, Jindal Steel, Gail India, SBI and BHEL soared 3-5 percent.
Elsewhere, stocks retreated across Asia and Europe, with commodity-related shares taking a beating as commodities eased on concerns about anti-Japan protests in China and mounting worries over Spain's sovereign debt. Growth fears also returned to the fore after overnight data showed a gauge of manufacturing activity in the New York State contracted for a second month in a row in September, falling to its lowest level in nearly 3-1/2 years as new orders continued to shrink.
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