Sensex Sheds 571 Points, Nifty Closes Below 17,150 Amid Volatility

Among Sensex constituents, Power Grid, Asian Paints, UltraTech Cement, Nestle, Hindustan Unilever Limited, and HCL Technologies were among the major losers

New Delhi: The domestic equity benchmarks, Sensex and Nifty, on Monday snapped two-day winning run and ended lower as the Russia-Ukraine conflict failed to de-escalate after several round of talks between tw0 countries.

The 30-share BSE platform ended day’s trade at 57,292, 571 points lower, while the NSE Nifty slipped 169.45 points to shut shop at 17,118. Nifty had hit an intra-day high of 17,353 and a low of 17,096.

The S&P BSE Sensex had opened about 160 points higher but it quickly erased gains to trade flat.

Among Sensex constituents, Power Grid, Asian Paints, UltraTech Cement, Nestle, Hindustan Unilever Limited, and HCL Technologies were among the major losers. In contrast, Sun Pharmaceutical, HDFC Bank, Maruti, Titan, and NTPC were the only gainers.

"With no significant improvement in the tensions between Russia and Ukraine and uncertainty in the Gulf region, crude prices surged leading to a sell-off in the domestic market after the recent rally. FII's coming back to buying mode is a positive for domestic equities but a rise in bulk diesel prices and inflationary pressure are bending the domestic market," said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.

In the broader market, the BSE Midcap index ending 0.7 per cent down while the BSE Smallcap index added 0.4 per cent. In comparison, the frontline indices fell 1 per cent.

Future Group companies’ shares continued to remain under pressure on Monday as most of the group’s listed firms traded at their all-time low. Future Retail, Future Supply Chain, and Future Lifestyle Fashions hit their respective all-time low on the BSE in intra-day trade on Monday.

On Thursday, the BSE benchmark rallied 1,047.28 points to finish at 57,863.93. Likewise, the broader Nifty surged 311.70 points to 17,287.05. Equity markets were closed on Friday on account of Holi.

Like India, other Asian markets also traded lower on Monday.

In Asian trade, Shanghai ended marginally higher while Hong Kong went lower. Tokyo was closed for a holiday. Stock exchanges in the US closed with significant gains on Friday.

Meanwhile, international oil benchmark Brent crude jumped 3.53 per cent to $111.5 per barrel.

Foreign institutional investors were net buyers as they bought shares worth Rs 2,800.14 crore on Thursday, according to exchange data.