Sensex Falls Over 300 Points, Nifty Below 17,000; Infosys, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank Top Drags

The Indian equity benchmarks were trading with a negative bias on Monday dragged by losses in index heavyweights like Infosys, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, ITC, Larsen & Toubro and HDFC. The Sensex fell as much as 438 points and Nifty 50 index dropped below its important psychological level of 17,000 amid weak global cues. Most of the Asian markets were trading lower following a weak closing of US markets on Friday. Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 0.8 per cent, Taiwan Weighted dropped 0.6 per cent and South Korea's KOSPI declined 0.7 per cent.

As of 9:39 am, the Sensex was down 389 points at 57,038 and Nifty 50 index dropped 100 points to 16,995.

On Friday, Wall Street closed out a miserable September with a loss of 9.3 per cent, the worst monthly decline since March 2020.

The S&P 500 fell 1.5 per cent Friday to its lowest level in almost two years. The benchmark index has lost ground for six of the last seven weeks and posted its third straight losing quarter.

Back home, selling pressure was broad-based as eleven of 15 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading lower led by the Nifty Metal index's over 1 per cent fall. Nifty Auto, FMCG, IT and Consumer Durable indices also fell between 0.5-0.8 per cent.

On the other hand, Nifty Oil & Gas index was top sectoral gainer, up 1.2 per cent. Nifty Healthcare, Pharma and Media indices also rose around 1 per cent each.

Mid- and small-cap shares were trading on a muted note as Nifty Midcap 100 index fell 0.07 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index rose 0.1 per cent.

ONGC was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose nearly 5 per cent to Rs 133 after the government reduced the tax on domestically-produced crude oil to Rs 8,000 per tonne from Rs 10,500 per tonne.

NTPC, Apollo Hospitals, Coal India, Bharat Petroleum, Divi's Labs, Sun Pharma, Cipla, Reliance Industries, UPL, Power Grid, Ultratech Cement and Axis Bank were also among the gainers.

On the flipside, Hindalco, Titan, Adani Enterprises, Maruti Suzuki, Eicher Motors, JSW Steel, IndusInd Bank, Tata Consumer Products, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Asian Paints and Nestle India fell between 1-2.7 per cent.

The overall market breadth was marginally positive as 1,663 shares were advancing while 1,143 were declining on the BSE.