Sensex, Nifty Snap Three-Day Winning Streak As Banking, Auto Shares Dive

The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 indexes came off record highs touched earlier in the day and snapped their three-day winning streak as auto, banking and information technology stocks came under selling pressure. The S&P BSE Sensex fell as much as 687 points from record high of 39,572 and the NSE Nifty 50 Index dropped as much as 201 points from record high of 11,883.55. The benchmarks opened higher owing to gains in Reliance Industries and rallied to all-time high levels but gave up gains after HDFC Bank, Infosys, ICICI Bank, Tata Consultancy Services and State Bank of India came under selling pressure in afternoon deals.

In the yesterday's session, Sensex and Nifty posted their biggest single-day gain since September 2013.

The Sensex ended 383 points or 0.97 per cent lower at 38,970 and the NSE Nifty 50 Index declined 1 per cent or 119 points to close at 11,709.

Seventeen of 19 sector gauges compiled by BSE ended lower led by the S&P BSE Auto Index's 2.6 per cent decline.

Banking, information technology, power, oil & gas, metal, utilities, telecom, industrials, basic materials and finance indexes also dropped between 1 and 1.5 per cent each.

On the flipside, S&P BSE Consumer Durables Index was top gainer, up 0.65 per cent.

Mid- and small-cap shares also witnessed selling pressure as the SP BSE SmallCap Index fell 0.61 per cent and the S&P BSE MidCap Index declined 0.84 per cent.

Tata Motors was top Nifty loser, the stock fell 6.6 per cent to Rs 177.60 after its net profit in March quarter nearly halved to Rs. 1,117 crore from Rs. 2,125 crore, a year earlier.

Zee Entertainment, Bharat Petroleum, Adani Ports, IndusInd Bank, Grasim Industries, Maruti Suzuki and Bharti Airtel were also among the losers.

On the flipside, Dr Reddy's Labs, Bharti Infratel, Titan, Britannia Industries and Reliance Industries were among the notable gainers.