Sensex slips 331 pts, Nifty ends below 26K-mark amid last-minute selling, foreign fund outflows

Mumbai: Benchmark Sensex declined by 331 points and Nifty closed below the 26,000 mark on Monday amid last-minute selling by cautious investors and foreign fund outflows.

Paring early gains, the 30-share BSE Sensex declined by 331.21 points or 0.39 per cent to settle below 85,000 at 84,900.71. During the day, it dropped 521.81 points or 0.61 per cent to 84,710.11.

The 50-share NSE Nifty fell by 108.65 points or 0.42 per cent to 25,959.50. The index opened on a positive note and moved in a narrow range for most of the session, but a sharp decline in the final half hour dragged it lower.

Among Sensex firms, Bharat Electronics, Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Steel, UltraTech Cement, Bajaj Finserv and Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles were the major laggards.

However, Tech Mahindra, Asian Paints, Infosys, Adani Ports, Sun Pharma and HDFC Bank were the gainers.

Broader market sentiment was weak as the BSE smallcap gauge dropped 0.83 per cent and midcap index declined 0.27 per cent.

Among sectoral indices, realty tanked 2.10 per cent, followed by capital goods (1.34 per cent), utilities (1.24 per cent), metal (1.21 per cent), power (1.19 per cent) and commodities (1.16 per cent).

IT, teck and BSE Focused IT were the gainers.

A total of 3,033 stocks declined while 1,209 advanced and 207 remained unchanged on the BSE.

FIIs offloaded equities worth Rs 1,766.05 crore on Friday, however, Domestic Institutional Investors (DIIs) bought stocks worth Rs 3,161.61 crore, according to exchange data.