Sensex Down 900 pts, Nifty Trades Lower Below 24,700; Eternal, Infosys, Hindalco in Red

Equity markets declined over 1% today as investors booked profits after Monday’s sharp rally. Nifty IT, FMCG, Financials and Auto emerged among the top losers among the sectoral indices.

Sensex fell by over 961.08 points or 1.16 to clock an intraday high of 81,546.38. Nifty shed 249.1 points or 0.99% at 24,675.60.

Bharat Electronics, Dr. Reddy's Laboratories, Jio Financial Services, Cipla and Sun Pharmaceutical Industries were the top gainers on the Nifty, while Eternal, Infosys, Hindalco Industries, Power Grid Corporation of India and HCL Technologies were the top losers, down over 3%.

Close to about 2300 shares advanced and 859 declined. The value of 140 shares remained unchanged.

VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Investments Limited said, “It is important to understand that the sharp 916-point surge in Nifty was not caused by institutional activity. The combined FII and DII buying yesterday was only Rs 2,694 crore. This means the market surge was triggered by short-covering and HNI plus retail buying.”

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) pumped ₹1,246.48 crore in the equities market on Monday, while Brent crude fell by 0.23% to $64.81 a barrel.

Broader markets traded higher. As of 10:30 am, the Nifty Midcap100 was up 0.26%, while the Smallcap 100 index gained 0.65%.

On the Asian markets front, South Korea's Kospi, Japan's Nikkei 225 index and Shanghai's SSE Composite index traded in green, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng quoted lower.

US markets settled with significant gains on Monday. The Nasdaq Composite climbed 4.35%. S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 3.26% and 2.81% respectively.