Sensex succumbs to late sell-off, ends 77 points lower

The BSE gauge Sensex dived nearly 900 points from the day’s peak to finish Friday’s highly volatile session 77 points lower at 57,200, triggered by a late sell-off mainly in banking and auto shares.

Starting off on a high note, the 30-share index soared to trade briefly above the key 58,000-level in afternoon trade, before plunging to a low of 57,119.28. After fighting bouts of volatility towards the fag-end of the session, the index finally closed 76.71 points or 0.13% lower at 57,200.23.

Likewise, the NSE Nifty too swung between gains and losses before ending 8.20 points or 0.05% down at 17,101.95.

The Sensex was pulled lower mainly by Maruti, Tech Mahindra, PowerGrid, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and SBI — which suffered losses to the tune of 3%.

Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services, said, ”After the decent opening post yesterday’s weak closing, domestic bourses again staged a quick sell-off, tracking weak European trend. Policy tightening by the US Fed and rising geopolitical tensions in Ukraine coloured global sentiments.”

The broad market ended mixed considering IT, realty and mid and smallcaps rebounded after continuous heavy-selling this week, he added.

Elsewhere in Asia, bourses saw mixed trading pattern, as barring Japan and Korea all logged losses.

Meanwhile, international oil benchmark Brent crude eased 0.42% to $ 89.70 per barrel.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) remained net sellers in the capital markets, offloading shares worth ₹6,266.75 crore on Thursday, as per official exchange data.