The stock market benchmark Sensex dropped for the second day in a row today on fall in bluechips like Bharti and ICICI Bank, even as market leader Reliance Industries saw a rise in its share price.
While many frontline shares lost, the second-rung stocks attracted investors’ attention and the BSE small-cap and mid-cap rose by 188.17 points and 96 points respectively.
Marketmen said investors have started focusing on small and mid cap stocks seeing better entry opportunities there.
They also attributed less interest in front-line stocks to pull-out by FIIs, saying they have started redeeming some of their exposure to meet their year-end bonus payment needs — a historic trend seen in the last month of a year.
The 30-share BSE barometer, which rose to an intra-day high of 20,171.57 points early in the day, finally settled at 20,030.83 points, registering a fall of 73.56 points from its last close.
The NSE Nifty index fell by 10.40 points, or 0.17 per cent, to close at 6,047.70 points. PTI
