Panic selling in the last hour of the session after two new COVID-19 cases were detected in Delhi and Telangana spooked equity market on Monday, thus sending the benchmark indices into the negative territory for the seventh session in a row.

The S&P BSE Sensex, which hit a high of 39,083.17, up 786 points during the day, erased all its gains to settle at 38,144, down 153 points against Friday's close of 38,297.29. State-run lender State Bank of India (SBI) ended as the biggest loser on the index with 5 per cent decline while IT major HCL Tech (up over 2 per cent) emerged as the biggest gainer. Besides SBI, Reliance Industries (RIL), Axis Bank, and Bajaj Finance contributed the most to the index's fall.

On the NSE, the 50-share Nifty index ended at 11,133 points, down 69 points or 0.62 per cent.

In the broader market, the S&P BSE MidCap index slipped 0.65 per cent to 14,504 levels and the S&P BSE SmallCap index ended 0.77 per cent lower at 13,604 levels.

Volatility index India VIX climbed nearly 8.5 per cent to 25.20 levels.

On the sectoral front, except Nifty IT, all the other indices ended in the negative zone. Media stocks bled the most with the Nifty Media index plunging over 4.5 per cent to 1,595 levels. PSU Bank stocks were next on the list. Nifty IT, on the other hand, gained around 1.5 per cent to 15,428.

Shares of Tata Power hit an over 13-year low of Rs 45.35, down 3 per cent, on the BSE in an otherwise firm market on Monday. Thr stock has fallen 13 per cent in the past week on the back of heavy volumes after concerns emerged that the electric utilities firm may snap power lines to five states beginning March if they don't agree to tariff increases. The stock of the Tata Group Company was trading at its lowest level since July 28, 2006.

Global Markets

Asian shares regained a measure of calm on Monday as markets bounced after a searing sell-off last week and as investors pinned hopes on a likely coordinated global monetary response to help soften the economic blow of the coronavirus outbreak. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 1 per cent, up for the first time in four sessions and recovering from a fall of about 0.3 per cent in early trade.

E-minis for the S&P500, which were down more than 1 per cent at one point, were last up 0.5 per cent.

Oil prices rebounded more than $1 a barrel on hopes of a deeper cut in output by OPEC after earlier hitting multi-year lows. Read by: Sukanya Roy