Sensex At Day's Low, Sheds Over 400 Points; Pharma Drags

The benchmark indices have slid almost one per cent in the late afternoon to touch the lows of the day, amid a volatile session of trading, dragged by  weakness in pharma stocks.At 2:50 pm, the BSE Sensex plunged more than 700 points from intra-day highs and was at 48,335.01, lower by 383.55 points or 0.74 per cent and the NSE Nifty was at 14,511.17, down 119.05 points or 0.82 per cent. The BSE Midcap and BSE Smallcap indices are, however, outperforming the largecap stocks, with losses of around 0.3 per cent each.

Meanwhile, the rupee is trading flat at 73.95 per dollar. It had opened marginally higher at 73.90 per dollar against the previous close of 73.93.

Among individual shares, Tata Consumer Products has dived nearly 5 per cent to top the loser's list among the BSE stocks. Pharma stocks are also trading weak, with Cipla, Dr Reddy's and Sun Pharma losing 1-3 per cent each on the BSE.

Among stocks in the news, Tata Chemicals shares plunged more than 7 per cent to Rs 720 after the chemicals giant reported a huge decline in profit in the quarter ended March 2021.

On the other, Bajaj Finance, SBI Life Insurance and SBI gained around a per cent each on the BSE.

The BSE market breadth is strong. Out of 3,016 stocks traded on the BSE, there are 1531 advancing stock as against 1,310 declines.