The Indian equity benchmarks gained strong ground in the first half of the session but pared all the gains at the fag end and ended in the red on Wednesday.
The 30-share Sensex, which gained nearly 880 points to touch an intra-day high of 31,568.35, closed at 30,379.81, down 310.21 points, or 1.01%.
The broader Nifty ended the day at 8,925.30, shedding 68.55 points or 0.76%.
Market participants attributed the fall to the overall weak trend in most markets on account of concerns related to a weak economic outlook.
Interestingly, even as the benchmarks fell on Wednesday, many of the side counters gained ground with over 1,400 stocks advancing in BSE, as against 955 that declined.
In the Sensex pack, HDFC Bank, Reliance Industries, HDFC, Kotak Mahindra Bank, and Bajaj Finance contributed the maximum to the day’s losses.
Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs), however, were net buyers at ₹1,359 crore on Wednesday even as their domestic counterparts sold shares worth nearly ₹1,100 crore.