The Sensex and the Nifty fell nearly 0.6 per cent at the closing session on Wednesday as investors remained cautious ahead of the Union Budget to be presented by Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley, on Thursday.

Domestic sentiment was also dampened due to weak global cues.

Trading was highly volatile on bouts of buying and selling despite a positive start in early trade.

After opening higher by 33 points at 25,615, the 30-share BSE index Sensex shed 137.30 points or 0.54 per cent to close at 25,444.81.

Similarly, the 50-share NSE index Nifty, after opening 15 points up at 7,638, fell 38.2 points or 0.5 per cent to end at 7,585.

A report by Equentis Capital said: "Market players’ and people’s expectations are too high from the new government and overall focus has now shifted on major policy changes during the budget which should take Indian economy on a high growth path.Market players are expecting an industry-friendly budget this year and this could keep the market on a higher side."

Barring oil & gas, FMCG and consumer durables, all other BSE sectoral indices ended significantly in the red. Among them, auto, power, realty and capital goods indices fell the most by 2.43 per cent, 1.69 per cent, 1.6 per cent and 1.47 per cent, respectively.

On the other hand, oil & gas index was up 0.84 per cent, followed by FMCG 0.81 per cent and consumer durables 0.45 per cent.

ONGC, ITC, Hindalco, GAIL and Tata Steel were the major Sensex gainers, while the major losers were Bajaj Auto, Coal India, Maruti, Tata Power and Tata Motors.

Portugal and Italy led the declines in European bonds and stocks dropped while gold climbed. Emerging market shares fell from a 16-month high.

Asian stocks fell, with the regional index heading for the steepest one-day drop in two months, as global equities drop amid concern that the valuations are too high.

Global sentiment was dampened as China's consumer price index (CPI) rose 2.3 per cent in June from a year earlier, shy of the consensus forecast of 2.4 per cent, pointing to lingering weakness in the economy.

Asian markets also took cues from overnight losses in the Wall Street as investors turned cautious ahead of the beginning of earnings season.

Healthy employment data for June released last week had prompted some Wall Street economists to predict the US Federal Reserve would raise interest rates earlier than expected. The Fed will release the minutes of its latest policy meeting later today, and the ECB officials, including President Mario Draghi, are scheduled to speak.

Downbeat German economic data released on Tuesday gave investors reason to believe that the European Central Bank could take further easing steps to support the euro zone economy.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW