Mumbai: Falling for the third day in a row, benchmark stock indices Sensex and Nifty tumbled 1 per cent on Tuesday dragged down by profit taking in blue-chips such as HDFC Bank, Reliance Industries and ICICI Bank.
Retreating from early highs, the 30-share BSE Sensex tanked 872.98 points or 1.06 per cent to settle at 81,186.44 as 27 of its constituents closed lower and three with gains. During the day, it dropped 905.72 points or 1.10 per cent to 81,153.70 as profit taking emerged in auto, financials and defence stocks.
The broader NSE Nifty tumbled 261.55 points or 1.05 per cent to 24,683.90.
Analysts said investors opted for profit-booking as they awaited more clarity on the India-US trade agreement.
The market capitalisation of BSE-listed firms eroded by Rs 5,64,594.68 crore to Rs 4,38,03,259.51 crore ($5.13 trillion).
From Sensex firms, Eternal dropped the most by 4.10 per cent. Maruti, Mahindra & Mahindra, UltraTech Cement, Power Grid, Nestle, Bajaj Finance, Hindustan Unilever and Asian Paints were also among the laggards. HDFC Bank dropped by 1.26 per cent and index major Reliance Industries by 1.13 per cent.
Tata Steel, Infosys and ITC were the gainers.
The BSE midcap gauge tanked 1.65 per cent and smallcap index dropped 0.96 per cent.
All sectoral indices ended lower. Auto declined 2.13 per cent, consumer discretionary (1.81 per cent), utilities (1.64 per cent), services (1.53 per cent), industrials (1.36 per cent) and telecommunication (1.35 per cent).
As many as 2,531 stocks declined while 1,438 advanced and 135 remained unchanged on the BSE.
Among Asian markets, Japan’s Nikkei 225 index, Shanghai’s SSE Composite index and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng settled in the positive territory while South Korea’s Kospi ended marginally lower.
Markets in Europe were trading in the green. US markets ended higher on Monday.
Foreign institutional investors offloaded equities worth Rs 525.95 crore on Monday, according to exchange data.