Global economic concerns and pressures from institutional investors led the Indian market lower for the second day in a row. The recent rally was due for a correction and investors made use of the opportunity to book profits.

The market opened sideways in the absence of supportive global cues. It touched an early high but slipped into the negative terrain amid choppy trade. The indices emerged above the neutral line in mid-morning trade only to slip once again on profit booking after the recent rally. The picture turned bleaker in the post-noon session with the market touching its intraday low. It pared some of the losses and closed marginally lower, down for the second day in a row.

The Sensex closed 65.06 points (0.32%) lower at 20,250. The index swung between a high-low of 20,409 and 20,145, respectively. The Nifty settled at 6,103, down 16.85 points (0.28%), after touching a high of 6,148 and 6,067 during trade today.

The losers outnumbered the gainers in today’s session. The Sensex ended with 20 decliners against 10 gainers and the Nifty had 31 stocks in the red compared to 19 on the advancing side. Among the broader indices, the BSE Mid-cap index declined 0.47% and the BSE Mid-cap index shed 0.28%.

The top performers on the Sensex were Cipla (up 1.74%), Hindalco Industries (up 1.32%), Reliance Communications (RCom) (up 1.26%), Wipro (up 0.98%) and Reliance Industries (RIL) (up 0.94%). The main losers on the index were Tata Steel (down 3.48%), Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) (down 2.74%), Jaiprakash Associates (down 2.30%), Tata Motors (down 1.90%) and Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) (down 1.66%).

The sectoral gainers included BSE Healthcare (HC) (up 0.82%), BSE IT (up 0.37%) and BSE Oil & Gas (up 0.22%). BSE Metal (down 1.49%), BSE Auto (down 1.30%) and BSE Consumer Durables (down 1.08%).

Domestic passenger car sales jumped by 30.38% to 1,69,082 units in September, compared to 1,29,684 units in the corresponding month last year. This was the best performance by any category in the auto sector last month.

According to numbers from the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) released today, total vehicle sales across all categories registered a growth of 21.63% at 13,29,086 units in September, as against 10,92,687 units in the month a year ago.

Asian markets closed mostly in the red on concerns about corporate earnings. However, Chinese and Hong Kong markets ended on a positive note following news that Moody’s Investor Services is likely to upgrade China’s government bond rating. However, caution prevailed ahead of the US jobs data to be released later today.

The Jakarta Composite tanked 1.09%, Nikkei 225 tumble 0.99%, Straits Times declined 0.42%, Seoul Composite was down 0.20% and Taiwan Weighted shed 0.48%. On the brighter side, Shanghai Composite jumped 3.13% Hang Seng added 0.26%.

Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee is hopeful that the steps taken by the government and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) would bring inflation down to 6% by the end of this financial year.

The finance minister expressed his concern over inflationary pressures on food items. "We have taken steps to improve the supply side by easing import of food items that are in short supply," he said. Mr Mukherjee is in Washington for the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

The US market closed lower on Thursday on concerns that corporate earnings might not match analysts’ expectations and monthly jobs data, due later today, might disappoint. Meanwhile, initial jobless claims fell by 11,000 to 445,000 in the week ended 2nd October, the fewest since 10th July. On the corporate front, Alcoa Inc., the biggest US aluminium producer, reported third-quarter profit excluding certain items of 9 cents a share. The stock slipped 1.4% before the results were released.

The Dow fell 19.07 points (0.17%) to 10,948. The S&P 500 dipped 1.91 points (0.16%) to 1,158.On the other hand, the Nasdaq added 3.01 points (0.13%) to 2,383.

Buying by foreign institutional investors (FIIs) was almost negated by selling by domestic institutional investors (DIIs) yesterday. FIIs were net buyers of stocks worth Rs1,183 crore while DIIs were net sellers of equities worth Rs1,193 crore.