The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 indexes continue to struggle in afternoon trading as banking and financial services shares continue to drag markets lower. The benchmarks staged a gap down opening as a rise in domestic coronavirus cases and worries over a second wave of infections in China sapped investors’ appetite for riskier assets. As of Monday, COVID-19 cases in India surged above 3,32,400 and deaths were more than 9,500. India is the fourth-worst affected country in the world. Meanwhile, weakness in global markets also dampened investor sentiment. The Sensex fell as much as 857 points and Nifty touched an intraday low of 9,726.35.
As of 2:18 pm, the Sensex was down 450 points or 1.33 per cent at 33,330 and Nifty fell 126 points or 1.3 per cent to 9,847.
European markets were trading with deep cuts as France’s CAC40 fell 1.74 per cent, Germany’s DAX dropped 1.7 per cent and England’s FTSE 100 index slumped 1.5 per cent.
Back home, India recorded 11,502 fresh coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, pushing the total number of cases to 3,32,424, according to data from the Union Health Ministry till Monday morning. The death count rose to 9,520 with 325 fatalities in the last one day.
Seven of 11 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading lower led by the Nifty Private Bank index’s 3 per cent decline. Nifty Bank, Financial Services, FMCG, Metal and Realty indices also fell between 1-3 per cent each.
On the other hand, Nifty PSU Bank index was top gainer, up nearly 2 per cent.
IndusInd Bank was top Nifty loser, down 5 per cent at Rs 503. Axis Bank, Tata Motors, Bharat petroleum, ICICI Bank, NTPC, Tata Steel, ITC, HDFC Bank, Grasim Industries and Bajaj Finance were also among the losers.
On the flipside, Wipro, GAIL India, HCL Technologies, ONGC, Sun Pharma, Mahindra & Mahindra and Hindalco were among the gainers.
