Benchmark indices closed lower on Wednesday led by losses in banking, auto and consumer durables shares. Sensex ended 635 points lower at61,067. During the day, the 30-stock index tumbled 764 points to 60,938. Nifty dipped 186 points or 1.01 per cent to end at 18,199.
Sensex losers
IndusInd Bank ( 2.37%), Bajaj Finserv (2.16%), Maruti (2.15%), Ultratech Cements (2.14%), Tata Motors (1.98%) and Axis Bank (1.91%) were among the top losers.
Sensex gainers
Sun Pharma (1.73%), HCL Tech (0.82%), TCS (0.62 %), Tech Mahindra (0.56%), Nestle (0.49%), Infosys (0.30%) and Wipro (0.19%) were the only Sensex gainers.
Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services said, “Bears continued to cause havoc in the domestic market while Wall Street snapped its losing streak ahead of the release of the US GDP numbers. Though all other sectors bled, pharma stocks were on a high owing to renewed fears of a global COVID outbreak, and IT witnessed bargain buying. The market also anticipates the release of the RBI meeting minutes for more clarity on the central bank’s thought process.”
Market cap of BSE-listed firms fell to Rs 282.86 lakh crore. BSE mid cap and small cap indices fell 362 points and 646 points, respectively. Market breadth was negative with 787 shares closing higher against 2761 stocks falling on BSE. 116 shares were unchanged.
S Ranganathan, Head of Research at LKP Securities said, “Benchmark indices dropped yet again on the back of Covid scare in China and elsewhere but today’s fall was more noticeable to participants since the red colour on the screen engulfed all over barring Pathology Labs, Hospitals and select Pharma counters involved in Covid-related drugs. Barring Healthcare & IT, all other sectoral indices ended in the red as benchmark Indices lost over a percentage in afternoon trade despite opening in the green even as developed markets continued to trade in the green.”
Banking, auto, metal and consumer durables shares were the top sectoral losers with their BSE indices falling 824 pts, 383 pts, 201 pts and 522 points respectively. Pharma shares were the top gainers with the BSE healthcare index rising 519 points to 23,600. IT shares also ended higher with the BSE IT index rising 66 points to 28,730.
Nifty IT index too gained 151 points to 28,764.
Meanwhile, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 455.94 crore on Tuesday, according to exchange data.
Previous session
Benchmark indices recovered most of their intra-day losses and closed marginally lower on Tuesday led by buying in market heavyweights Reliance Industries and Tata Consultancy Services. Sensex managed to trim most of its early losses and ended 103.90 points lower at 61,702.29. During the day, the 30-stock index tumbled 703.51 points or 1.13 per cent to 61,102.68. Nifty dipped 35.15 points or 0.19 per cent to end at 18,385.30.
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