Sensex lower on profit-booking in late morning deals

After its four-day uptrend, the S&P BSE benchmark Sensex was trading lower by 55.37 points in late morning trade today amid profit-booking in front-line shares of capital goods, oil and gas, PSU and banking sectors.

Earlier, the BSE-30 share index Sensex opened almost flat at 19,999.97 and hovered between 20,055.53 and 19,820.24 before quoting at 19,941.72 points at 1030 hours.

It showed a loss of 55.37 points or 0.28 per cent from its last close.

The NSE-50 share index Nifty eased by 6.15 points or 0.10 per cent to 5,890.60 at 1030 hours.

Major losers were - ONGC (2.09 pc), HUL (1.83 pc), ITC (1.55 pc), Tata Motors (1.36 pc) and NTPC (1.33 pc).

Asian stock markets were trading mostly lower in early trade on investors' cautiousness.

Key benchmark indices in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, South Korea and Singapore fell by 0.11 and 0.74 per cent, while benchmark indices in China and Japan rose by 0.63 and 0.94 per cent.

Meanwhile, in the domestic market, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 2,563.60 crore yesterday, as per provisional data from the stock exchanges.