Sensex, Nifty Decline For Second Straight Day Weighed Down By Banks

The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 indexes declined for second straight session on Friday weighed down by weakness in banking shares like HDFC Bank, IndusInd Bank, State Bank of India and Axis Bank. The benchmarks opened higher and were trading firmly higher but after the Supreme Court's order asking telecom companies to deposit adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues worth Rs 1.47 lakh crore by March 17 led to a sudden fall in the equity markets. The Sensex fall as much as 519 points from the day's highest level and the Nifty 50 index briefly fell below important psychological level of 12,100.

The Sensex ended 202 points or 0.5 per cent lower at 41,258 and the NSE Nifty 50 index fell 61 points or 0.5 per cent to close at 12,113.

Supreme Court slammed mobile carriers on Friday for non-payment of billions of dollars in government dues and threatened them with contempt proceedings if they didn't pay up by March 17.

Banking shares were among the worst hit in today's session as fears of rise in non-performing assets in telecom sector after the Supreme Court order led to selling pressure, analysts said.

All the 11 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange ended lower led by the Nifty PSU Bank index's 2 per cent decline. Nifty Private Bank, FMCG, Metal, Bank, Auto and Realty indexes also fell between 1 and 1.4 per cent each.

GAIL India was top loser in the Nifty 50 basket of shares, the stock fell 5.5 per cent to Rs 123. Bharti Infratel, IndusInd Bank, Eicher Motors, Power Grid, State Bank of India, ITC, Hero MotoCorp, Coal India and Mahindra & Mahindra were also among the losers 1.8-5.5 per cent each.

On the flipside, Yes Bank, Bharti Airtel, UPL, Bharat Petroleum, HCL Technologies, ICICI Bank and Zee Entertainment were among the gainers.

The overall market breadth was negative as 1,616 shares ended lower while 914 closed higher on the BSE.