Indian equity benchmarks continued to trade in deep red in the noon session, with the Sensex losing over 700 points and the Nifty falling below 17,450 amid fears of global economic health with the aggressive interest rate hike. Losses in Bankex, PSU, and Utilities shares pulled the headline indices lower.

The Sensex was trading at 58,399.67, down by 720.05 points or 1.22% after trading in the range of 58,378.99 and 59,143.32. On the index, 7 stocks were advancing and 23 stocks declining.

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The broader indices were trading in red with the BSE Mid cap index down by 1.22% and the Small cap index down by 0.86%. The few gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Healthcare up by 0.45%, IT up by 0.24% and TECK was up by 0.12%, while Bankex was down by 2.40%, PSU down by 1.92%, Utilities down by 1.74%, Power down by 1.69% and Auto was down by 1.46% were the top losing indices on BSE.

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The top gainers on the Sensex were Sun Pharma up by 1.66%, Tata Steel up by 1.30%, Infosys up by 0.97%, ITC up by 0.70% and HCL Tech up by 0.16%. On the flip side, Power Grid lost 4.89%, Mahindra & Mahindra 3.43%, Indusind Bank 2.86%, Axis Bank 2.74% and HDFC 2.73%.

The Nifty was trading at 17,420.85, down by 208.95 points or 1.19% after trading in the range of 17,413.50 and 17,642.15. On the index, 12 stocks were advancing and 38 stocks declining.

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The top gainers on Nifty were Divi’s Lab up by 2.96%, Sun Pharma Inds up by 1.63%, Tata Steel up by 1.40%, Infosys up by 0.95% and ITC up by 0.77%. Power Grid down by 5.04%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 3.46%, Indusind Bank down by 2.97%, HDFC Bank down by 2.86% and Axis Bank down by 2.81% were the top losers.

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Asian markets were trading mostly in the red with the Hang Seng decreasing 82.67 points or 0.46% to 18,065.28, Taiwan Weighted dropping 166.25 points or 1.16% to 14,118.38, KOSPI falling 42.29 points or 1.81% to 2,290.02, Straits Times trembling 34.07 points or 1.04% to 3,229.00, Shanghai Composite declining 8.38 points or 0.27% to 3,100.53 and Jakarta Composite down by 31.04 points or 0.43% to 7,187.87.