Sensex, Nifty Decline For Second Straight Session; L&T Top Loser

The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 indexes declined for second straight session on Thursday dragged down by weakness in heavyweights like Larsen & Toubro, HDFC, HDFC Bank, Hindustan Unilever, Axis Bank and Titan as future and derivative contracts for October expired. The benchmarks opened lower and extended losses in afternoon trading wherein the Sensex fell as much as 398 points and Nifty touched an intraday low of 11,606.

The Sensex ended 173 points or 0.43 per cent lower at 39,750 and Nifty 50 index fell 59 points or 0.50 per cent to close at 11,671.

Selling pressure was broad-based as all the 11 sector gauges, barring the index of information technology shares, compiled by the National Stock Exchange ended lower led by Nifty Media index's nearly 2 per cent fall. Banking, auto, financial services, FMCG, metal, pharma and realty sector gauges also fell between 0.5-1 per cent.

Mid- and small-cap shares also faced selling pressure as Nifty Midcap 100 index declined 0.43 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 dropped nearly 1 per cent.

Larsen & Toubro was top Nifty loser, the stock fell 5 per cent to close at Rs 935 after it reported September quarter earnings. Titan, Adani Ports, ONGC, Axis Bank, Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Motors, Hindustan Unilever, Hero MotoCorp, NTPC, HDFC Bank and HDFC also declined between 1.6-3.2 per cent.

On the flipside, Asian Paints, Tech Mahindra. UltraTech Cement, Shree Cements, HCL Technologies, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Wipro were among the gainers.

The overall market breadth was negative as 1,559 shares ended lower while 1,031 closed higher on the BSE.