Closing Bell: Sensex falls 872 points, Nifty down 267 points

Indian equity benchmarks continued to decline on Monday with the Sensex and Nifty falling over 1% each, amid heavy selling in bank stocks and negative global market trends.

The Sensex, which had started the trade on a weak note, plunged 872.28 points or 1.46% to settle at 58,773.87. During the day, it tumbled 941.05 points or 1.57% to settle at 58,705.11. The Nifty declined 267.75 points or 1.51% to finish at 17,490.70.

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The broader indices ended in red with the BSE Mid cap index down by 1.80% and the Small cap index down by 1.17%. The top losing sectoral indices on the BSE were Metal down by 2.69%, Realty down by 2.47%, Basic Materials down by 2.44%, Consumer Disc down by 2.01%, and Auto down by 1.92%, while there were no gaining sectoral indices on the BSE.

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Major laggards from the Sensex pack were Tata Steel down by 4.50%, Asian Paints down by 3.51%, Wipro down by 2.96%, Sun Pharma down by 2.90%, Larsen & Toubro down by 2.87%, Bajaj Finance down by 2.71%, UltraTech Cement down by 2.65%, Bajaj Finserv down by 2.58%, Kotak Mahindra down by 2.46% and Tech Mahindra down by 2.27%.

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Among the gainers were ITC up by 0.64% and Nestle up by 0.28%.

The rupee recovered early losses to close 9 paise lower at 79.84 against the US dollar amid a strong greenback overseas and a massive sell-off in equities.

In Asian markets, Seoul, Tokyo, and Hong Kong settled lower, while Shanghai ended in the green.

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European stock markets were trading lower during the mid-session deals. The US stock market had closed lower on Friday.

Brent crude, the international oil benchmark was trading 0.95% lower at $95.80 per barrel.

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According to stock exchange data, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) turned net buyers as they picked up shares worth Rs 1,110.90 crore on Friday.