Closing Bell: Sensex falls 310 points, Nifty down 82 points

Indian equity benchmarks settled lower on Thursday, with
both Sensex and Nifty ending in red terrain. A fag-end sell-off wiped out early
gains, with IT and bank stocks seeing heavy losses amid monthly derivatives
expiry. Positive trade continued over Dalal Street for the most of the session
but witnessed a steep fall in the last hour of the trade.

The Sensex declined 310.71 points or 0.53% to settle at
58,774.72. During the day, it touched a high of 59,484.35 and a low of
58,666.41. The NSE Nifty dropped 82.50 points or 0.47% to end at 17,522.45.

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The broader indices ended in green with the BSE Midcap
index up by 0.20% and the Small cap index up by 0.17%. The top gaining sectoral
indices on the BSE were Realty up by 1.52%, Consumer Durables up by 0.89%, PSU
up by 0.53%, Consumer Disc up by 0.31%, and Metal up by 0.07%, while TECK down
by 0.88%, IT down by 0.88%, FMCG down by 0.45%, Oil & Gas down by 0.40% and
Industrials down by 0.35% were the top losing indices on BSE.

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Major laggards from the Sensex pack were Bajaj Finance down
by 1.81%, Power Grid Corp down by 1.33%, Infosys down by 1.20%, TCS down by
1.14%, IndusInd Bank down by 1.11%, Axis Bank down by 1.05%, NTPC down by 0.90%
and Larsen & Toubro down by 0.82%.

Among the gainers were Maruti Suzuki up by 0.46%, SBI up by
0.27%, Dr. Reddy’s Labs up by 0.20%, Kotak Mahindra up by 0.06%, and Titan
Company up by 0.02%.

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The rupee depreciated 7 paise to close at 79.93 after
moving in a narrow range against the US dollar.

Asian markets settled mostly higher on Thursday. The KOSPI
Composite surged 1.22%, Nikkei 225 gained 0.58%, Hang Seng jumped 3.63% and
Shanghai Composite added 0.97%.

European stock markets were trading in the green during
mid-session deals. US stock markets had ended with gains on Wednesday.

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Brent crude, the international oil benchmark climbed 0.17%
to $101.3 per barrel.

According to stock exchange data, foreign institutional
investors (FIIs) bought shares worth Rs 23.19 crore on Wednesday.