Equity benchmarks snapped two sessions of gaining streak on Friday, dragged down by financial majors such as SBI and Axis Bank amid weak global cues. Sensex tanked 714 points to end at 57,197 and Nifty fell 220 points to close at 17,171.
SBI, HUL, IndusInd Bank were the top Sensex losers falling up to 3.08 per cent.
M&M, Bharti Airtel and Maruti were the top Sensex gainers, rising up to 0.98 per cent.
Of 30 Sensex stocks, 24 ended in the red. Market cap of BSE-listed firms fell to Rs 269.64 lakh crore.
BSE mid-cap and small-cap indices slumped 175 points and 110 points, respectively.
The market breadth was negative with 1,451 shares ending higher against 1956 stocks falling in the red. 124 shares were unchanged.
V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services said, “This excessively volatile market without any clear direction is being influenced on a daily basis by two factors – one, external and two, internal. The external factor is the erratic movement in the mother market US where the S&P 500 and Nasdaq go up by around 2 per cent one day and go down by around 2 per cent the next day. The internal factor influencing the market is the see-saw tussle between FIIs and DIIs. Both these external and internal factors are erratic now and that’s why the market is volatile without any direction.”
He said that the Fed chief’s comment that a 50 bps rate hike is possible in May and that ‘control of inflation has become absolutely essential’ has pushed the 10-year bond yield above 2.9 per cent and consequently impacted equity markets.
“But this impact, too, is likely to be temporary since the market has already discounted this known hawkishness of the Fed,” Vijayakumar added.
All 19 BSE sectoral indices ended in the red. Banking, metal and pharma shares were the top sectoral losers with their BSE indices falling 931 points, 494 points and 393 points, respectively.
Foreign institutional investors offloaded shares worth a net Rs 713.69 crore on Thursday, according to exchange data.
Meanwhile, the rupee declined 32 paise to close at 76.49 (provisional) against the US dollar on Friday, in line with a sell-off in domestic equities and a firm greenback in the overseas markets.
Persistent foreign capital outflows also dented investor sentiment, forex traders said.
On┬а Thursday, equity markets closed higher for the second consecutive session led by gains in Reliance Industries, Infosys and HDFC twins amid a mixed trend in global markets. Sensex zoomed 874.18 points or 1.53 per cent to end at 57,911.68 and Nifty rallied 256.05 points or 1.49 per cent to 17,392.60.
Foreign institutional investors continued their selling spree, offloading shares worth Rs 713.69 crore on Thursday, according to stock exchange data.
Elsewhere in Asia, markets in Tokyo, Hong Kong and Seoul settled lower, while Shanghai ended marginally higher.
Markets in Europe were trading lower in the afternoon session. Stocks in the US had ended lower on Thursday.
Meanwhile, international oil benchmark Brent crude declined 1.60 per cent to $106.6 per barrel.
