After two days of gain, markets trade red

Market ended red after two days of the gain. BSE Sensex and Nifty dropped 0.62%. The S&P BSE Sensex dropped 205.71 points while the Nifty lost 62.85 points at the end of day’s trading.

“Expiry of March derivatives contracts coupled with the last day of the financial year lent volatility to the markets and kept investors on their toes. Key benchmark indices started the day on a negative note amid weakness in global stocks and extended losses to finally close the day lower. Tech stocks in the US continued to be weighed down by the furore created over the use of social media data by a leading data analytics firm. Both the benchmark Sensex and the Nifty lost over 0.50%, for the day”, said Karthikraj Lakshmanan, Senior Fund Manager – Equities at BNP Paribas Mutual Fund.

The BSE Sensex closed at 32,968.68 while the Nifty concluded at 10,121.30 at the end of the trading session. The indices marked a loss after two days of trading green.

Tata Steel, Bharati Airtel, Adani Port, Vedanta Limited and Reliance Industry Limited were among top loser while Wipro, Coal India, HeroMotorcorp, Bosch Limitd, Gail and Tech Mahindra were top gainers. The BSE Midcap lost 0.53% to conclude at 15,962.59 and the BSE Small cap ended at 16,994.36 to conclude the day’s session 0.92% lower.

“All the sectoral indices on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) traded in the red with metals and PSU banking stocks succumbing to strong selling pressure”, added Lakshmanan.

The S&P BSE Metal sector witnessed a fall of 2.04% while the S&P BSE Telecom fell by 2.58%.

Among the global markets, all major global markets were trading and closed green. In the precious metal section, gold lost 0.03% to close at Rs 30,691 while the crude oil closed 0.24% down at 4,221.

At the end of the day the yield on 10 year benchmark Government securities softened to close at 7.3929.