It was a disappointing session for the markets though recoverd a bit from day's low. Huge profit booking seen in realty, banking, pharma and oil stocks barring some metal, auto and technology stocks. The Sensex recovered nearly 94 points and the Nifty 33 points from day's low. Weak cues from Asian and European markets added to negative sentiments. Market breadth remained mixed with negative bias. Small cap stocks escaped from weakness while midcaps were under selling pressure.

The Sensex touched an intraday high of 17,367.13 and low of 17,136.26 before closing the day at 17,230.18, down 1.17% or 204.76. The Nifty fell 52.75 points or 1.02% to settle at 5104.95; touched a high/low of 5160.05 and 5072.40, respectively. The CNX Midcap closed at down. However, the BSE Small cap

Market breadth was nearly mixed; about 1523 shares have advanced, 1398 shares declined, and 177 shares remained unchanged.

Banking stocks like Bank of India, Axis Bank, SBI, Centurion Bank, HDFC Bank, Yes Bank, Union Bank and ICICI Bank were the major culprits. The BSE Bankex lost 1.98% or 177.43 points at 8,763.85.

Realty stocks have collapsed like a pack of card, including Phoenix Mills, Mahindra Life, Unitech, Indiabulls Real, Anant Raj Ind, DLF and Peninsula Land. The BSE Realty slid 1.87% or 150.15 points at 7,894.10.

There was sour pills from pharma side. The Pharma Index was down 1.19% at 4,269.84 led by Matrix Lab, Sterling Bio, Glenmark, Divis Labs, Sun Pharma, Lupin, Cipla, Nicholas Pirama and Dr Reddy's Labs.

Oil & Gas Index fell 1.06% at 11,169.61 due to selling in Essar Oil, HPCL, GAIL, BPCL, ONGC, IOC, Reliance and Petronet LNG. The Nymex Crude was trading at USD 126.62 a barrel, at the time of writing market report. However, Cairn India shot up nearly 10%, to close at Rs 327.85.

Selling pressure also weighed on Capital goods stocks like BHEL, ABB, Astra Microwave, Praj Industries, Rel Ind Infra and Areva T&D. Capital Goods Index closed at 13,563.48, down 0.97%.

FMCG stocks including Nestle, Tata Tea, Godrej Consumer, GlaxoSmith Cons, Dabur India, HUL and ITC have tumbled. FMCG Index lost 0.93% at 2,484.94.

Power stocks like Reliance Infra, GVK Power, NTPC, Torrent Power and Power Grid Corp have lost ground. Power Index fell 0.83% at 3,304.79. However, Tata Power charged up by 2.73% at Rs 1490.90.

However, metal stocks were outperformer. The BSE Metal Index shot up 0.70% at 17,176.97 due to buying in Sterlite Ind, JSW Steel, Jindal Saw, Jindal Steel, Mah Seamless and Tata Steel.

Total turnover for the day stood at Rs 52860.64 crore including Rs 13647.59 crore from NSE Cash segment, Rs 33290.93 crore from NSE F&O and Rs 5922.12 crore from BSE Cash segment.

Asian markets were trading lower. Shanghai Composite was down 1.20% or 43.25 points at 3,561.51. Hang Seng fell 490.31 points or 1.9% at 25,251.92. Nikkei 225 Average was down 117.57 points or 0.82% at 14,152.04. Straits Times lost 0.33% or 10.58 points at 3,196.85. Seoul Composite was down 25.19 points or 1.34% at 1,860.18. Taiwan Weighted fell 2.26% or 210.52 points at 9,084.68.

However, Jakarta Composite was up 1.7% or 42.12 points at 2,510.96.