Sensex Falls Nearly 500 Points From Day's High As Banking Shares Fall

The benchmark indexes came off intraday highs in afternoon trading. The Sensex fell as much as 490 points from day's highest level and Nifty 50 index tested its important psychological level of 10,750. Weakness in banking and financial services shares weighed on the markets, However, Reliance Industries, ITC, Infosys, Hindustan Unilever and HCL Technologies limited the downside in the markets.

As of 2:17 pm, the Sensex was up 66 points at 36,661 and Nifty was at 10,781, up 13 points.

India registered more than 28,000 new coronavirus cases for the second consecutive day, taking its tally to over 8.78 lakh infections, the Union Health Ministry said this morning. The jump in the new patients in the last 24 hours - 28,701 cases - is the country's biggest single-day surge since the beginning of the pandemic.

Meanwhile, six of 11 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading higher led by Nifty IT and FMCG indexes over 1 per cent gains. On the other and Nifty Bank index fell 1.5 per cent. Nifty Financial Services, PSU Bank and Private Bank indexes also declined over 1.5 per cent each.

Mid- and small-cap shares were witnessing selling pressure as Nifty Midcap 100 index declined 0.3 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index declined 0.13 per cent.

Market capitalisation (m-cap) of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) crossed the Rs 12 lakh crore mark in Monday's trading as the company's shares rose more than 3 per cent.

Tech Mahindra was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose 5 per cent to Rs 596. HCL Technologies, Zee Entertainment, HUL, Hindalco, Wipro, Vedanta and Infosys were also among the gainers.

On the flipside, HDFC Bank was top Nifty loser, down 2.4 per cent at Rs 1,078. Bajaj Finance, HDFC, ICICI Bank, GAIL India, Power Grid and State Bank of India were also among the losers.

The overall market breadth was negative as 1,580 shares were declining while 1,030 were advancing on the BSE.