Mumbai, March 19: The Indian stock market closed significantly lower on Thursday after three consecutive sessions of gains. Concerns over rising crude oil prices and heavy losses in global markets, coupled with the U.S. Federal Reserve’s decision to keep policy rates unchanged, led to a decline of over 3% in the major domestic benchmarks, Nifty50 and Sensex.
During this period, the 30-share BSE Sensex fell by 3.26%, or 2,496.89 points, closing at 74,207.24. Similarly, the NSE Nifty dropped by 3.26%, or 775.65 points, ending at 23,002.15.
In intra-day trading, the Sensex opened at 74,750.92 and hit a low of 73,950.95, down by 2,753 points or 3.6%. The Nifty opened at 23,197.75 and reached a low of 22,930.35, down by 847 points or 3.5%.
The broader markets also experienced significant declines, with the Nifty Midcap index falling by 3.19% and the Nifty Smallcap index by 2.94%.
All sectoral indices traded in the red, with the Nifty Auto witnessing the largest drop of 4.25%. Other sectors like Nifty Realty, Nifty Financial Services, Nifty Private Bank, Nifty IT, Nifty Metal, and Nifty FMCG also recorded declines ranging from 2.53% to 3.81%.
In the Nifty50, all stocks except ONGC, which rose by 1.55%, saw declines. The biggest losers included Shriram Finance (down 6.71%), Eternal (down 5.38%), and HDFC Bank (down 5.11%). Significant declines were also observed in shares of Bajaj Finance, Mahindra & Mahindra, L&T, TMPV, Indigo, Grasim, Trent, and Bajaj Auto.
This decline in the Sensex resulted in a loss of approximately ₹12 lakh crore in the total market capitalization of BSE-listed companies, bringing it down from ₹438 lakh crore to around ₹426 lakh crore.
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DBP