Sensex, Nifty50 Extend Losses To 4th Session

(RTTNews) - Key Indian equity indices Sensex and the Nifty50 ended weak on Thursday, extending their losses to a fourth straight session, as rising oil prices and bond yields, and sustained selling by foreign institutional investors sent stock prices down south ahead of a long weekend.

The Indian markets will remain closed on Friday for Mahatma Gandhi Jayanti.

FPIs sold shares worth a net Rs 10,150 crore on Wednesday (October 30) after pulling out shares worth a net Rs 9,940 crore a day earlier.

Brent crude front-month futures surged to $100.79 a barrel, gaining nearly 3%, before easing slightly to $100.10 a barrel.

The benchmark BSE Sensex, which plunged nearly 1,200 points to a low of 71,292.88 around early afternoon, ended the session with a loss of 570.59 points or 0.79% at 71,909.70.

The National Stock Exchange's Nifty50 settled with a loss of 198.50 points or 0.88% at 22,421.95, off the day's low of 22,217.30.

Automobile stocks were among the worst hit. The Nifty Auto index dropped as much as 3.46%

Metal stocks tumbled, pushing the Nifty Metal index down by 2.35%. Realty, consumer durables and cement stocks also closed sharply lower, while technology stocks had a good session. A few stocks from the banking space moved notably higher.

Tata Steel, Adani Ports, ITC, Power Grid Corporation, Hind Unilever, Eternal, Larsen & Toubro, Reliance Industries, NTPC, BEL and UltraTech Cement lost 1.6%-3%.

ICICI Bank, Bajaj Finance, Titan, Indigo, Axis Bank, Bharti Airtel, Trent and State Bank of India also closed weak.

Bajaj Auto tumbled 7.7% after reporting a 9% drop in vehicles sales in the month of September. Maruti Suzuki fell more than 4.5% despite reporting a 24.4% jump in sales in September.

M&M shed about 3.25% despite reporting a 15% rise in sales in September. Eicher Motors, Ashok Leyland, TVS Motor, Hero MotoCorp, Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles and Hyundai also closed notably lower.

IT bellwether Infosys moved up 4.2%. Mphasis gained about 4.5%. TCS and HCL Technologies moved up 1.2% and 1.1%, respectively. Wipro and Tech Mahindra posted modest gains.

The market breadth was very weak. On BSE, 3,204 stocks closed in negative territory. 1,226 stocks moved higher, while 228 stocks ended flat.