Profit booking drags equity markets lower | NSE closes lower

Mumbai: The Indian equity markets provisionally closed on a flat-to-negative note on Wednesday due to profit booking.

According to market observers, healthy macro-economic industrial production data, along with broadly positive Asian markets had given a push to key Indian equity indices -- the BSE Sensex and the NSE Nifty 50 -- during the initial trade session.

However, heavy selling pressure in oil marketing companies (OMCs) stocks and profit booking capped gains and dragged the two indices lower.

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At 3.35 p.m. the wider 51-scrip Nifty 50 of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) closed at 10,079.30 points -- down 13.75 points or 0.14 per cent.

The 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex) of the BSE, which opened at 31,188.95 points, provisionally closed at 32,186.41 points -- up only 27.75 points, or 0.09 per cent, from its previous close at 32,158.66 points.

--IANS Inputs