Reversing strong intra-day gains, Indian markets ended lower today amid some selling pressure in energy, FMCG, pharma and auto stocks. The Sensex, which earlier rose nearly 250 points intra-day, ended 100 points lower at 38,132. The Nifty settled 0.33% lower at 11,445, after rising to 11,546 at day's high.





Earlier in the session, banking index Bank Nifty hit a record high of 30,262. It closed 0.46% higher at 30,019.





Among the Sensex stocks, heavyweights RIL and HDFC fell over 1% each. Other major losers included PowerGrid, Bharti Airtel, Tata Motors and NTPC, down between 1.4% and 2%.





Among the major gainers, Yes Bank and IndusInd Bank surged over 5% while SBI rose 1.5%.





Midcap and smallcap stocks outperformed today, though they ended off day’s highs. The BSE midcap and smallcap indices rose 0.60% and 0.63% respectively.





Jayant Manglik of Religare Broking, said: “In the absence of key positive triggers domestically and fear of global economic slowdown, we expect the consolidation in the market to continue in the coming sessions. Global developments and movement of crude oil prices and currency would remain on market radar. Any correction in quality large/ midcap companies with strong growth prospects should be considered as a good buying opportunity for long term investors. With Lok Sabha elections round the corner, volatility and nervousness is expected to remain high in the coming weeks. Hence, traders should avoid risky leveraged positions."





Indian markets have seen sharp gains this month on the back of strong inflows from foreign institutional investors. "Nifty is trading with significant gains for the March series and is expected to hold on to the same. Banking space has outperformed with a significant margin while auto and metals have underperformed in the recent past. We continue to maintain a positive bias for the broader markets with bouts of correction to be used for accumulation. For the near term, support on the downside is seen at 11,200 levels while targets seen at 11800/12,200," said Sahaj Agrawal of Kotak Securities.





Global equity markets were flat today, hoping central bank action in the world's biggest economies could temper some of the slowdown in world growth, even though bond yields continued to flag recessionary fears.





MSCI's all-country world equity index, which tracks shares in 47 countries, was down around 0.1%.





The US yield curve inversion triggered a sharp stock selloff last week. The drop in yields picked up pace after the US Federal Reserve signalled a halt to its rate increases.

Markets got a reminder of global growth risks after Chinese data showed industrial profits shrank the most since late-2011 in the first two months of the year. That came after lacklustre economic data on Tuesday from Germany and the United States. (With Agency Inputs)