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Stock market benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty ended sharply lower on Friday, propelled by heightening conflict in West Asia and surging oil prices.
Besides, heavy selling in global markets, persistent foreign fund outflows and weakness in the rupee also dented investors’ sentiment.
Declining for the third day running, the 30-share BSE Sensex tumbled 1,579.82 points, or 2 per cent, to 74,454.60 during intra-day trade.The benchmark finally settled at 74,563.92, down 1,470.50 points, or 1.93 per cent.The 50-share NSE Nifty tanked 488.05 points, or 2.06 per cent, to end at 23,151.10.
The gainers and losers
From the 30 Sensex firms, Larsen & Toubro, Tata Steel, SBI, Bharat Electronics, Maruti, and UltraTech Cement were among the prominent laggards.
Hindustan Unilever and Bharti Airtel were the gainers.
Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, climbed 0.25 per cent to $100.7 per barrel. In Asian markets, South Korea’s benchmark Kospi, Japan’s Nikkei 225 index, Shanghai’s SSE Composite index and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index ended lower.
Meanwhile , India’s forex reserves dropped by $11.68 billion to $716.81 billion during the week ended March 6, the RBI said on Friday.
In the previous reporting week, the overall reserves had increased by $4.88 billion to an all-time high of $728.49 billion.
For the week ended March 6, foreign currency assets, a major component of the reserves, decreased by $9.88 billion to $563.24 billion, according to data released by the central bank.
