The Sensex and Nifty ended lower for a second consecutive session as investors booked profits in recent outperformers, after rising earlier on positive sentiment due to a good monsoon.
The 50-share NSE index Nifty fell 32.7 points or 0.38 per cent to end at 8,508.70 after earlier gaining as much as 0.54 per cent.
The 30-share BSE index Sensex lost 89.84 points or 0.32 per cent to close at 27,746.66, after rising as much as 0.64 per cent.
Top five Sensex gainers were Bajaj Auto (+2.51%), Axis Bank (+0.94%), Infosys (+0.88%), Sun Pharma (+0.81%) and Coal India (+0.59%), while the major losers were ONGC (-4.97%), Bharti Airtel (-3.98%), HUL (-2.04%), Tata Steel (-1.94%) and Cipla (-1.56%).
RIL shares ended down by 0.82 per cent at Rs 1,004.25 after rising 2.61 per cent earlier in the day.
Meanwhile, Axis Bank, India's third-biggest private sector lender, rose after the central bank on Friday raised the limit for foreign shareholding in the bank to up to 74 per cent.
Sectors such as consumer cyclicals, financials and industrials gained, while technology and telecom services fell.
Sectoral indices
Barring auto and and IT, all other BSE sectoral indices ended in the red. Among them, oil & gas index fell the most by 1.61 per cent, PSU 1.49 per cent, infrastructure 1.38 per cent and realty 1.32 per cent. On the other hand, auto index was up 0.35 per cent and IT 0.3 per cent.
Domestic sentiment was earlier buoyed by Reliance Industries Ltd results which sparked hopes about corporate earnings and due to above-average monsoon rains .
RIL results
Reliance Industries had on Friday posted first-quarter profit above expectations on higher margins from its core refining business, lifting the mood after software services exporter Infosys warned it wouldn't make its revenue target for the fiscal year.
Above-average monsoon rains have been driving the market recently, with the broader NSE index gaining 22.2 per cent from a near two-year low hit on February 29.
Monsoon session
Investors are also keeping a close watch on the monsoon session of Parliament which started on Monday amid hopes the government will be able to pass the Goods and Services Tax Bill that is now stuck in the Upper House.
“Monsoon is a factor as long-term investors are taking bets on core economy-related stocks - infrastructure, metals, PSU banks,” said Shrikant Chouhan, senior vice president - equity technical research at Kotak Securities, adding the market was doing well in spite of weakness in IT stocks and underperformance of pharma shares.
“Investors don't want to go for profit-taking because it is earnings season. This time, they are positive or at least expecting better numbers as compared to previous few quarters.”
Meanwhile, India’s exports rose 1.27 per cent to $22.57 billion in June, snapping 18-month downward spiral.
The dollar strengthened against the yen on Monday and oil prices rose as investors unwound safety trades after the failed coup in Turkey, while SoftBank Group's $32 billion deal to buy British chip designer ARM Holdings lifted European equities.
A report by SMC Global said: " Asian stocks outside Japan rose for a sixth day following a failed coup attempt in Turkey as energy and financial companies advanced. US stocks were little changed on Friday, with the S&P 500 Index slipping to halt its longest rally in four months, as investors weighed the potential for further gains with shares near records and corporate earnings projected to drop for a fifth quarter. US business inventories rose by 0.2 per cent in May after inching up by 0.1 per cent in April. Economists had expected another 0.1 per cent uptick. The bigger-than-expected increase came as retail inventories climbed by 0.5 per cent in May after dipping by 0.1 per cent in the previous month."