Indian shares remain down

Indian shares dropped for the second straight session on Tuesday and closed down 1.27 percent, falling the most in ten days, led by losses in ICICI Bank, as investors continued to take profits after last month's rally. A global retreat from riskier assets after Greece's surprise move to hold a referendum on its latest bailout deal also hurt the Indian stock market.
The main 30-share index ended down 224.18 points at 17,480.83 points, with only seven of its components advancing. The shares had posted their biggest monthly gain in seven months on Monday. "The market is generally circumventing after the rally that has happened in the system yesterday and last week, and to my mind, it's correcting... So, it's a healthy correction," said Deven Choksey, chief executive officer at brokerage K R Choksey.
The country's No 2 lender, ICICI Bank, closed down 3.88 percent at 895 rupees on profit booking, traders said. The stock had risen as much as 2.2 percent in the previous session after it reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit. Shares in Maruti Suzuki, India's largest carmaker, fell nearly 1 percent after its October vehicle sales more than halved. It pared all losses to close up 0.73 percent at 1,133.50 rupees.
The company, 54.2 percent owned by Japan's Suzuki Motor Corp, ended almost two months of strikes last month, after losing production of over 80,000 cars and seeing its market share shrink to 40 percent from over 50 percent a year previously. Shares in ACC, India's No 2 cement producer, closed down nearly 1 percent to 1,184.15 rupees after it posted a lower-than-expected quarterly net profit.
Rivals Ambuja Cements, which is expected to report results later in the day, and Jaiprakash Associates also lost 0.29 percent and 1.87 percent, respectively. Cigarette maker ITC fell 2.28 percent after a report the federal finance ministry is exploring plans to impose additional levies on cigarettes, two institutional dealers said.
The 50-share NSE index ended down 1.29 percent at 5,257.95 points. In the broader market, 934 losers outpaced 500 gainers on total volume of about 552.4 million shares. Shares in Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd closed up 0.74 percent after a top official said the state-run oil refining and marketing firm is considering a further increase in petrol prices to cut down losses. Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd and Indian Oil Corp also closed up 1.03 and 1.37 percent, respectively, after the news. Shares in infrastructure firm Hindustan Construction Co closed down nearly 5.45 percent.