The benchmark indices fell for the second session on Thursday amid mixed global cues.

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Where Japanese and Chinese markets ended strong, investors on Dalal Street reacted to the 2.5 per cent decline in South Korea’s Kospi index on selloff by foreign investors.

The BSE Sensex trimmed 286.62 points, or 1.37 per cent, to close at 20,589.09. Nifty lost 81.45 points, or 1.30 per cent, to 6194.25.

“The sentiments were damaged after the equity market in South Korea plummeted in the last few minutes following the biggest ever sale by overseas investors on the day of options expiry,” said Amar Ambani, head of research at India Infoline.

Poor unemployment numbers in Australia and weak opening of European markets too added to the negative sentiments.

Alex K Mathews of Geojit BNP Paribas said, “Adding more to the negativity, Australian unemployment rate rose unexpectedly in October to 5.4 per cent from 5.1 per cent last month. European markets were down as selling was seen in technology and banking stocks. The less-than-expected earnings forecast for Cisco was one of the reasons that triggered selling in technology stocks.”

Among Indian IT stocks, TCS, Tech Mahindra, Wipro and Infosys declined 2.49 per cent, 1.73 per cent, 1.29 per cent and 0.92 per cent, respectively. Bharti Airtel dipped 3.26 per cent to Rs 317.45 even after reporting better-than-expected revenues.

“Bharti’s second quarter revenues were above our expectations with better-than-expected results for African operations despite lower-than-estimated revenues in India and the rest of South Asia. Ebitda surprised negatively on account of quarter-over-quarter decline in margins in both India and other South Asian markets as well as African market. It’s ARPU is now lower than its peers,” Himanshu Shah of HDFC Securities said in a note.

Tata Motors shed 1.97 per cent to Rs 1,276.50 after it said it would offer additional protection, free of cost, to its Nano customers. DLF dropped 4.41 per cent to Rs 346.45 on reporting a 4.85 per cent drop in second quarter net profit.

amitmudgill@mydigitalfc.com