Insurer uses rally to sell shares in L&T, Cairn

The sharp jump in stocks on Monday gave some institutional investors a reason to trim exposure to some large-cap stocks. According to market participants, an insurance major sold some shares in Larsen & Toubro and Cairn India, which are part of the Nifty. But the demand for these shares from foreign institutions was strong enough to absorb the supply, they said. A broker said that some private mutual funds, which were buyers in a weak market last week, were sellers on Monday as part of their short-term trading strategy.

Contributed by Nishanth Vasudevan, Reena Zachariah & Harish Rao.