The Indian equity benchmarks were trading near intraday low levels in afternoon trading dragged by losses in heavyweights like Reliance Industries, Asian Paints, Kotak Mahindra Bank, State Bank of India, Bajaj Finance and Bharti Airtel. The benchmarks opened higher but soon turned volatile wherein the Sensex dropped as much as 424 points from the day’s highest level and Nifty 50 index tumbled below its important psychological level of 14,850.
As of 1:20 pm, the Sensex was down 149 points at 50,215 and Nifty 50 index declined 63 points to 14,845.
Nine of 11 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading lower led by the Nifty PSU Bank and Realty indexes’ nearly 2 per cent fall. Nifty Media, Metal, Pharma and Auto indices also dropped around 1 per cent.
On the other hand, FMCG and IT shares were witnessing buying in an otherwise weak session.
Mid- and small-cap shares were underperforming their larger peers as Nifty Midcap 100 index dropped 1.4 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index declined 0.97 per cent.
BPCL was top Nifty gainer, the stock fell 4.44 per cent to Rs 434. GAIL India, Coal India, NTPC, SBI Life, Adani Ports, Cipla, Asian Paints, Sun Pharma, ONGC, Tata Motors, Dr Reddy’s Labs, UltraTech Cement and HDFC Life also fell between 1.6-2.4 per cent.
On the flipside, ITC, Infosys, Tech Mahindra, HDFC, TCS, UPL, ICICI Bank and Mahindra & Mahindra were among the notable gainers.
The overall market breadth was negative as 1,888 shares were declining while 942 were advancing on the BSE.