Sensex tanks 627 points on last day but ends FY21 with 68% gains

Mumbai: Equity benchmark Sensex tanked 627 points to end below the 50,000 level on the last day of 2020-21 fiscal due to heavy profit booking in HDFC twins, RIL and Infosys but closed the financial year with a whopping 68 per cent rise.

The 30-share BSE index ended lower by 627.43 points or 1.25 per cent at 49,509.15 with 19 of its constituents ending in the red on Wednesday.

The broader NSE Nifty slumped 154.40 points or 1.04 per cent to close at 14,690.70.

During the financial year 2020-21, Sensex zoomed a massive 20,040.66 points or 68 per cent while Nifty skyrocketed 6,092.95 points or 70.86 per cent despite COVID-19 blues.

On the last day of FY21, HDFC Bank and HDFC were the top losers among Sensex stocks, a day after the private banking major admitted to some glitches in its online banking services. The bank, which has already faced the RBI penalty for disruption in online services, promised to resolve the issue and restore services. HDFC tanked 4 per cent while HDFC Bank declined 3.86 per cent on BSE.

Among other major losers, PowerGrid fell 2.71 per cent, Tech Mahindra by 2.5 per cent, ICICI Bank by 1.71 per cent, ONGC by 1.59 per cent, Kotak Bank by 1.5 per cent, Infosys by 1.28 per cent and Reliance Industries by 1.25 per cent.

On the other hand, ITC, Bajaj Finserv, HUL, SBI and TCS were among the gainers. Among sectoral indices, BSE finance, bankex, power, telecom, energy and teck fell up to 1.73 per cent, while realty, FMCG, consumer durables, basic materials and metals indices rose up to 1.89 per cent. Broader midcap and smallcap indices outperformed benchmarks, rising up to 0.52 per cent.

Financials, especially private banks, witnessed heavy profit booking, which along with selling pressure in IT stocks dragged benchmarks. However, investors continue to lap up FMCG, metals and pharma names.

Meanwhile, the global oil benchmark Brent crude was trading 0.58 per cent lower at USD 63.80 per barrel.

"Weak cues from across the globe forced the domestic market to shed yesterday's optimism. US markets had a weak close after the US bond yield reached near its 14-month high level while European and Asian markets followed the trend. Private banks were the sectorial laggards due to selling seen in heavyweights. However, mid cap and small cap stocks remained in positive territory today," Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services said.