Sensex Falls Over 400 Points, Nifty Drops Below 11,700

The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 indexes came of record high levels and erased gains led by declines in Infosys, State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Tata Motors and IndusInd Bank. Earlier in the day, Sensex and Nifty extended their rally and soared to record highs led by gains in in Reliance Industries, HDFC and HDFC Bank after exit polls predicted a win for the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the recently concluded general elections.

As of 2:53 pm, the Sensex fell 1.07 per cent or 420 points to 38,933 and the NSE Nifty 50 Index declined 1.12 per cent or 133 points to 11,695.

Fifteen of 19 sector gauges compiled by BSE were trading lower led by the S&P BSE Auto Index's nearly 2 per cent decline. Utilities, metal, oil & gas, power, IT, industrials and banking sector gauges were also down between 0.75 and 1.65 per cent each.

On the other hand, S&P BSE Energy Index was top gainer, up 0.3 per cent.

Selling pressure was broad-based as the mid- and small-cap shares were also witnessing selling pressure. The S&P BSE MidCap Index fell 0.7 per cent and S&P BSE SmallCap Index dropped .5 per cent.

In the Nifty 50 basket of shares, Tata Motors was top loser, the stock fell 6.65 per cent to Rs 177.50 after its net profit in March quarter nearly halved to Rs 1,117 crore from Rs 2,125 crore, a year earlier.

Bharat Petroleum, Zee Entertainment, Indian Oil, Adani Ports, GAIL India, Yes Bank, Tata Steel, State Bank of India and IndusInd Bank were also among the losers.

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