Mumbai, March 11 (IANS): After five days of a rising trend, a benchmark index of Indian equities markets slipped 108 points Tuesday on profit booking. Metal, auto and healthcare stocks came under selling pressure.

Market sentiments were bearish ahead of inflation and industrial output data due to be released Wednesday. The data will decide the course of the Reserve Bank of India's policy review April 1.

The 30-scrip S&P Sensex of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened at 21,918.83 points, closed at 21,826.42 points, down 108.41 points or 0.49 percent from its previous day's close at 21,934.83 points.

The Sensex touched a high of 21,018.52 points and a low of 21,772.11 points intra-day.

The wider 50-scrip Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) closed trade at 25.35 points or 0.39 percent down at 6,511.90 points.

Heavy selling pressure was observed in metal, healthcare and automobile index, while buying support was seen in realty, information technology (IT) and power indices.

The S&P BSE metal index was down 318.12 points, followed by healthcare index, which was lower by 100.81 points, and automobile index, down 82.43 points.

However, the realty index was up 31.14 points, information technology (IT) index was up 13.20 points and power index was up 11.15 points.

The major Sensex gainers were: Tata Power, up 4.12 percent at Rs.82.20; ONGC, up 1.07 percent at Rs.322.50; Hindustan Unilever, up 0.73 percent at Rs.560.95; Tata Motors, up 0.56 percent at Rs.398.10; and BHEL, up 0.51 percent at Rs.188.85.

The losers were: Tata Steel, down 5.52 percent at Rs.344.15; Hindalco Inds, down 3.69 percent at Rs.117.40; Sesa Sterlite, down 3.63 percent at Rs.177.65; Sun Pharma, down 2.63 percent at Rs.580.35; and Maruti Suzuki, down 2.50 percent at Rs.1,755.90.

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