Sensex, Nifty Fall For Third Straight Day As Banks, Auto Shares Decline

The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 Index logged in third straight day of losses led by declines in auto and banking heavyweights like HDFC Bank, State Bank of India, Maruti Suzuki, IndusInd Bank and Yes Bank came under selling pressure. For most part of the day, the S&P BSE Sensex and Nifty 50 indexes traded with a positive bias but erased gains in afternoon trading as losses in private sector lenders and carmakers deepened wiping out entire intraday gains. In intraday deals today, the Sensex fell as much as 315 points from day's highest level and Nifty 50 index touched high of 11,645.95 and low of 11,564.80.

The Sensex ended 0.21 per cent or 80 points lower at 38,565 and NSE Nifty 50 Index dropped 0.16 per cent or 18 points to shut shop at 11,576.

Seven of 11 sector gauges compiled by the National stock Exchange ended lower led by the Nifty Auto Index's 1.5 per cent decline. Nifty Bank, Nifty Private Bank, Nifty PSU Bank and Nifty Financial Services Indexes also dropped between 0.4 and 0.7 per cent each.

On the flipside, Nifty Pharma Index was top gainer, up 1.1 per cent.

Small-cap shares underperformed larger peers as the Nifty Smallcap 100 Index declined 0.64 per cent.

Maruti Suzuki was top Nifty loser, the stock fell 3.55 per cent to Rs 7,061. Yes Bank, Tata Steel, IndusInd Bank, NTPC, Hero MotoCorp, State Bank of India and GAIL were also among the losers.

On the other hand, ONGC, Zee Entertainment, Sun Pharma, Bajaj Finance, Reliance Industries, Coal India and Wipro were among the gainers.

The overall market breadth was negative as 1,402 shares ended lower while 1,129 closed higher on the BSE.