Sensex tanks 1,172 points, Nifty ends below 17,200; IT, banking stocks top losers

Equity benchmarks tumbled for the fourth consecutive session today, dragged down by heavyweights Infosys and HDFC twins amid a weak trend in Asian markets. Sensex tanked 1,172.19 points or 2.01 per cent to end at 57,166.74. During the day, the 30 stock index tanked 1,496.54 points or 2.56 per cent to 56,842.39.

Nifty crashed 302 points or 1.73 per cent to close at 17,173.65.

Infosys, HDFC, HDFC Bank, Tech Mahindra, Wipro and TCS were the top Sensex losers falling up to 7.27 per cent. NTPC, Tata Steel, Maruti, Titan, Nestle, Titan and M&M were among the top Sensex gainers, rising up to 6.11 per cent.

Of 30 Sensex stocks, 20 ended in the red.

Share Market update: Sensex crashes 1,172 pts, Nifty ends below 17,200; Infosys, HDFC, HDFC Bank top losers

Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services, said, "Unfavourable start to earnings season in heavyweight stocks of IT and banking sector led to heavy sell-off. Lower-than-expected results prompted the market to worry about the headwinds faced by IT sector like attrition, wage inflation, lower utilisation, and cut in IT spending by industries due to geopolitical and macro issue. The degree of downfall is high because the sector was trading at high valuation and risk of a downgrade in outlook has increased."

Market cap of BSE-listed firms fell by Rs 2.59 lakh crore today to Rs 269.44 lakh crore against the market cap of Rs 272.03 lakh crore on April 13 this year.

Infosys stock fell 7.16 per cent after the IT firm's Q4 earnings failed to enthuse investors.

Shares of HDFC Bank lost 4.53 per cent to Rs 1,398.50 even as the leading private sector lender reported a 22.8 per cent rise in its standalone net profit at Rs 10,055.2 crore for the quarter ended March 2022.

IT, banking and pharma shares were the top sectoral losers with their BSE indices falling 1,646 points, 725 points and 188 points, respectively.

Rahul Sharma, Research Head, Equity 99 said, "After a long weekend, we witnessed huge fall of 2% in benchmark index. The fall was mainly on account of below estimates results of Infosys and HDFC Bank and the rising tension between Russia and Ukraine. We expect further fall in markets in coming days considering the recent rise of COVID cases in India and rising inflation concerns across the globe. Investors are advised to diversify their portfolio and also keep adequate liquidity in hand."

BSE mid-cap and small-cap indices slumped 237 points and 297 points, respectively. The market breadth was negative with 1,462 shares ending higher against 2062 stocks falling in the red. 146 shares were unchanged.

Foreign institutional investors offloaded shares worth a net Rs 2,061.04 crore on Wednesday, according to exchange data.

Meanwhile, the rupee slipped 6 paise to close at 76.25 against the US dollar on Monday, tracking the strength of the greenback overseas and elevated crude oil prices.

At the interbank foreign exchange market, the rupee opened lower at 76.41 against the American currency, and finally settled for the day at 76.25, down 6 paise over its previous close. During the trading session, the rupee witnessed an intra-day high of 76.20 and a low of 76.43.

The wholesale price-based inflation zoomed to a four-month high of 14.55 per cent in March on rising prices of crude oil and other commodities due to disruption in global supply chain in the wake of the Russia-Ukraine war, a development that may prompt the RBI to raise interest rates to contain price rise.

In Asia, markets in Seoul, Shanghai and Tokyo settled lower. Hong Kong was closed for a holiday. International oil benchmark Brent crude slipped 0.18 per cent to $111.5 per barrel.

On Wednesday (April 13), Sensex declined 237.44 points or 0.41 per cent to end at 58,338.93. Nifty dipped 54.65 points or 0.31 per cent to finish at 17,475.65.

Stock markets were closed on Thursday for Mahavir Jayanti and Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Jayanti, as well as on Friday on account of Good Friday.