Indian equity benchmarks continue to trade in deep red in the afternoon session amid concerns about high inflation, rising interest rates, weak global cues, and a possible global recession. Sentiments were dampened as the rupee hits a new historic low against the dollar which will make the import of crude oil and other commodities expensive further raising inflation which for the past several months has remained above the Reserve Bank’s upper tolerance level of 6%.

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The Sensex was trading at 57,241.16, down by 857.76 points or 1.48% after trading in the range of 57,038.24 and 57,708.38. On the index, 6 stocks were advancing and 24 stocks declining.

The broader indices were trading in red with the BSE Mid cap index down by 3.04% and the Small cap index down by 3.43%. The only gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were TECK up by 0.09% and IT was up by 0.08%, while Metal down by 4.80%, Utilities down by 4.43%, Power down by 4.37%, Realty down by 4.29% and PSU was down by 3.62% were the top losing indices on BSE.

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The top gainers on the Sensex were Infosys up by 1.41%, Nestle up by 1.39%, HCL Tech up by 0.97%, Asian Paints up by 0.88% and Tech Mahindra up by 0.28%. On the flip side, Power Grid shed by 6.91%, Tata Steel 4.60%, Maruti Suzuki 4.22%, NTPC 3.99% and Bajaj Finance 3.75%.

The Nifty was trading at 17,041.25, down by 286.10 points or 1.65% after trading in the range of 16,978.30 and 17,196.40. On the index, 8 stocks were advancing and 42 stocks declining.

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The top gainers on Nifty were Divi’s Lab up by 2.02%, Nestle up by 1.53%, Infosys up by 1.31%, HCL Tech up by 0.90% and Asian Paints up by 0.85%. Power Grid down by 6.84%, Tata Motors down by 5.92%, Hindalco down by 5.68%, Eicher Motors down by 5.00% and Adani Ports down by 4.95% were the top losers.

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Asian markets were trading mostly in the red with the Hang Seng decreasing 114.25 points or 0.64% to 17,819.02, Nikkei 225 slipped 722.28 points or 2.66% to 26,431.55, Taiwan Weighted dropped 340.19 points or 2.41% to 13,778.19, KOSPI fell 68.48 points or 2.99% to 2,221.52, Straits Times trembled 46.73 points or 1.45% to 3,180.37, Shanghai Composite declined 17.53 points or 0.57% to 3,070.84 and Jakarta Composite was down by 87.59 points or 1.22% to 7,090.99.