With a gap-down opening, Indian equity benchmarks have
extended their previous session’s losses and are now trading down by half a
percent on Thursday, which dragged both the Sensex and Nifty below their
psychological 60,600 and 18,050 levels respectively. Weak cues from global
markets and heavy losses in auto, IT, and banking stocks weighed on the
sentiments. Besides, a weak rupee against the dollar also impacted domestic
equities, traders said.

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The Sensex was trading 280.36 points or 0.46% lower at
60,753.19 in initial deals. The Nifty fell 87.35 points or 0.48% to
18,069.65.

The broader indices were trading in red with the BSE Midcap
index down by 0.42% and the Smallcap index down by 0.26%. The top gaining
sectoral indices on the BSE were Healthcare up by 0.45%, Telecom up by 0.24%,
Consumer Disc up by 0.02% and Basic Materials up by 0.01%, while Auto down by
1.42%, IT down by 0.73%, Consumer Durables down by 0.72%, Bankex down by 0.67%
and Capital Goods down by 0.57% were the top losing indices on BSE.

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Top losers from the Sensex pack were Axis Bank, Tech
Mahindra, Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Steel, Reliance Industries, HDFC,
Maruti, and Infosys.

Among the gainers were Dr. Reddy’s Labs, Hindustan
Unilever, Bharti Airtel, PowerGrid Corp, and Sun Pharma.

In the previous session on Wednesday, Sensex ended 151.60
points or 0.25% lower at 61,033.55. The NSE Nifty fell 45.80 points or 0.25% to
end at 18,157.

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The rupee slipped 17 paise to 81.64 against the US dollar
in early trade on Thursday.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red with the Hang Seng
decreasing 323.88 points or 1.98% to 16,034.64, Shanghai Composite declining 16.05
points or 0.53% to 3,032.12, Taiwan Weighted dropping 156.45 points or 1.15% to
13,482.36, KOSPI falling 15.70 points or 0.65% to 2,408.71, Jakarta Composite
losing 84.45 points or 1.19% to 6,985.63 and Nikkei 225 slipping 285.75 points
or 1.03% to 27,430.68.

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US equity markets ended lower in the overnight session on
Wednesday.

According to stock exchange data, foreign institutional
investors (FIIs) remained net buyers in the Indian capital market on Wednesday,
as they bought shares worth Rs 386.83 crore.

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Brent crude futures, the international oil benchmark was
trading 0.06% lower at USD 92.71 per barrel.