Indian markets pulled back from their gaining spree in Thursday's opening bell with benchmark Sensex giving up 51,000-mark and Nifty 50 struggling to retain 15,000-level. Bears dominated the domestic equities amid weak global cues. This led to a broad-based selloff across sectoral indices with banking, metal, auto and financial stocks being the worst hit. On a broader market, large-caps saw a massive profit booking.
At around 09.48 am, Sensex was trading at 50,552.39 lower by 892.26 points or 1.73%. The index has shed nearly 905 points after clocking an intraday low of 50539.92 in early deals.
Meantime, Nifty 50 was struggling at 14,984.40 down by 261.20 points or 1.71%. The index has touched an intraday high and low of 15,101.05 and 14,980.20 in early trading hours.
On Sensex, only 2 scrips advanced which was
ONGC trading higher by 0.5% and Tech Mahindra marginally up. The remaining 28 scrips on the index had declined with
HDFC, Bajaj Finserv, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank being the top underperformers plunging by nearly 3% each.
Heavyweight stocks like ICICI Bank, L&T, IndusInd Bank, Bajaj Finance and Kotak Bank slumped between 2-2.4%. While stocks like
Reliance Industries and M&M slipped by nearly 2% each.
Other stocks like NTPC, SBI, Nestle, Maruti, Asian Paint, Ultratech Cement and Bajaj Auto dipped between 1-2%. While
TCS, HUL, Titan, Bharti Airtel and Dr Reddy's were also under selling pressure by slipping nearly 1% each.
In terms of sectoral indices on BSE, the Bankex index saw a sharp decline by 920 points, while the metal and auto index dipped by 419 and 301 points respectively. The finance index slumped by 165 points or 2%.
On the global front, Asian stock markets dropped on Thursday, tracking Wall Street declines of overnight led by once again rise in sovereign bond yields. Apart from Mumbai Sensex, the stocks in Hong Kong and Japan struggled the most.
Nikkei 225 fell by nearly 3%, while Hang Seng dived by 2.4%. Taiwan TSEC 50 Index dipped by 2.2%.
South Korea's KOSPI index and Australia ASX All Ordinaries tumbled by nearly 2% each, while the Shanghai SE Composite Index plunged 1.6%.
Notably, in MSCI Inc.’s Asia-Pacific, the technology sector struggled the most with shares diving from China to Australia exchanges.
The benchmark Treasury yields neared 1.5% in the US markets. Additionally, rising inflation expectations and concern over uneven economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic also dragged overall markets at the states.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index slipped by 2.70% at 12,997.75. The index has reached a two-month low. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 fell by 1.31% at 3,819.72 and Dow Jones Industrial Average down by 0.39% at 31,270.09.
Tech-giants Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. declines overweighed gains in banks and energy producers in the midsts of a global rotation to value stocks.