Awaiting Greece crisis outcome, Sensex ends 75 points lower; oil PSUs buck trend

Key equity benchmark indices snapped two-session gains on Thursday, under-performing global markets, as investors preferred to stay on the sidelines awaiting the outcome of Greece referendum this Sunday, which would decide whether the debt-hit country would stay or exit the European Union following its failure to pay off its dues on Tuesday.

On the other hand, Greece Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras yesterday urged Greeks to reject an international bailout deal, dampening the prospect of any conciliation with European Union partners.

On Thursday, the 30-share BSE S&P CNX Sensex, after languishing in negative territory for better part of the trading session, ended 75 points lower at 27,945.80.

The broader 50-share CNX Nifty closed at 8,444.90, down 8.15 points, or 0.1 percent from previous close.

Despite the negative close, market breadth ended higher with 1,519 stocks advancing against 1,251 declines on BSE.

Despite the uncertainty over the outcome of Greece debt crisis, other Asian indices namely Japan’s Nikkei ended nearly 1 percent higher and Hang Seng was up 0.1 percent at close. Key European gauges such as FTSE, DAX and CAC were up over 1-2 percent in intra-day trade.

However, dragging the local markets, investors shed their position in metals, IT and healthcare shares.

In the metal space, shares of Hindustan Zinc declined 2.1 percent to Rs 164.20, Hindalco eased 1.7 percent to Rs 111.15, Vedanta fell 1.1 percent to Rs 174 and Nalco was down 0.7 percent at Rs 39.70.

A day after IT shares attracted buying interest on hopes of encouraging earnings numbers in the June quarter, investors reduced their position in the sector. Shares of Infosys and TCS were down around a percent each.

Among the pharma laggards, shares of Aurobindo Pharma lost 3.4 percent to Rs 1,415.10, Cipla declined 1.1 percent to Rs 626.55, Dr Reddy’s fell 1 percent to Rs 3,532 and Lupin was down 0.4 percent at Rs 1,869.70.

However, oil marketing PSU shares notched up significant gains after US crude prices witnessed its biggest drop on Wednesday since April amid higher inventory levels.

Shares of IOC jumped 6 percent to Rs 414.20, HPCL scaled up 5.8 percent to Rs 780.20 and BPCL was up 1.4 percent at Rs 899.85.