Indices end lower for 2nd day; Sensex drops 441 points but up 2.5% this week
Domestic markets snapped the streak of weekly losses even as sombre global mood butchered bulls at the bourses for two days straight. A rise in Brent crude prices along with a jump in bond yields acted as the double whammy on stocks on Friday, pushing benchmark equity indices down by nearly a per cent. However, a tilt towards defensives towards the fag-end of the session lifted markets off-lows.
Among headline indices, the S&P BSE Sensex ended at 50,405 levels today, erasing 441 points or 0.87 per cent. From the day’s high of 50,886, the index tumbled 726 points to hit a low of 50,160. Financial, pharma, and IT counters were the top drags on the index today with IndusInd Bank, State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, HCL Tech, Bajaj Finserv, Infosys, Dr Reddy’s Labs, Sun Pharma, and HDFC leading the list of losers. All these stocks were down in the range of 1.7 per cent to 5 per cent.
On the upside, ONGC, Maruti Suzuki, Nestle India, Titan, Reliance Industries, and L&T supported the markets with up to 2.5 per cent gains.
On the NSE, the Nifty50 settled above the 14,900-mark at 14,938, down 143 points or 0.95 per cent. 38 of the 50 stocks declined on the Nifty today, while 12 advanced.
All the sectoral indices were painted red amid across-the-board sell-off. The Nifty PSU index plunged 4 per cent on the NSE, followed by the Nifty Metal index (down 3 per cent), and the Nifty IT and Realty indices (down 2 per cent each). The Nifty Bank, Auto, FMCG, and Financial Services indices slipped between 0.5 per cent and 1.7 per cent.
In the broader markets, the S&P BSE MidCap and SmallCap indices dropped 1.9 per cent and 1.5 per cent, respectively.
The overall market breadth favoured bears with 1,904 stocks ending the day in the red, compared with around 1,083 stocks that advanced on the BSE.