Sensex dives over 450 points in early trade, Nifty slips below 19,400; Mahindra Finance, NTPC down up to 4%

Indian equity benchmarks fell sharply in early deals today, dragged by banks, financials, automobile technology, metals and energy stocks. The BSE Sensex slumped over 450 points while the NSE barometer Nifty hit the sub-19,400 level. At 9:30 am, the 30-pack Sensex was down 451 points or 0.69 per cent at 65,061. The NSE benchmark was down 132 points or 0.67 per cent at 19,397. Fear gauge India VIX jumped 3.07 per cent to 3.07-level.

Such was the fall in the domestic indices that around Rs 1.79 lakh crore of BSE market capitalisation (m-cap) was wiped out. Investor wealth, as suggested by the BSE m-cap, fell Rs 1.79 lakh crore to Rs 317.42 lakh crore compared with a valuation of Rs 319.21 lakh crore recorded in the previous session.

On the global front, Wall Street equities fell overnight. Asian shares also declined today to hit a 11-month low. Concerns around US interest rates weighed on investor sentiment, traders said.

Back home, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold Rs 2,034 crore worth of shares on a net basis during the previous session, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought Rs 1,361 crore worth of shares, exchange data showed.

"A significant trend in the market is that fundamentally strong stocks like large cap private sector banks have turned weak on FII selling. For long-term investors, this is an opportunity," said VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

Frontline stocks such as ICICI Bank Ltd, Reliance Industries Ltd, Axis Bank Ltd, Infosys Ltd, L&T and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) contributed to the fall today.

14 out of the 15 sector gauges -- compiled by the NSE -- were trading in the red. Sub-indexes Nifty Bank, Nifty Financial Services, Nifty Auto, Nifty IT, Nifty Metal and Nifty Oil & Gas were underperforming the NSE platform by falling as much as 0.90 per cent, 0.87 per cent, 1.24 per cent, 0.60 per cent, 0.94 per cent and 0.68 per cent, respectively. On the flip side, Nifty FMCG edged 0.25 per cent higher.

Axis Bank was the top loser in the Nifty pack as the stock cracked 2.01 per cent to trade at Rs 1,020.1. IndusInd Bank, Maruti, NTPC and Bajaj Finserv fell up to 1.99 per cent.

In contrast, Nestle India, Hindustan Unilever, Adani Enterprises, BPCL and HDFC Bank were among the top gainers.

The overall market breadth was weak as 1,562 shares were declining while 1,243 were advancing on BSE.

On the BSE 500 index, Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services, Metro Brands, Max Health, Manappuram Finance, L&T Finance Holdings and Lodha tanked up to 4.07 per cent.

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