Delhi, 4 November (H.S.): After a single day of modest gains, the domestic stock market was hit by a sharp downturn on Tuesday. The session began on a mixed but flat note, and while initial buying provided a slight lift to the Sensex and Nifty indices, a wave of selling pressure quickly took hold and dragged the markets down. By the end of the day's trading, the Sensex had fallen by 0.62% and the Nifty by 0.64%.

The decline was broad-based, with sustained selling pressure on stocks in the IT, public sector enterprise, and metal sectors. The banking, automobile, capital goods, FMCG, healthcare, oil & gas, and technology indices also closed with losses. The consumer durables sector was the sole exception, seeing some buying interest.

The broader market was also impacted, with the BSE Midcap index falling by 0.26% and the Smallcap index ending the day 0.69% lower.This market weakness resulted in a significant erosion of investor wealth, with approximately ₹2.72 lakh crore being wiped out. The total market capitalization of companies listed on the BSE fell to ₹469.79 lakh crore (provisional) from ₹472.51 lakh crore on Monday.

Market breadth was decidedly negative. On the BSE, of the 4,329 stocks actively traded, 2,546 declined while only 1,618 advanced, and 165 remained unchanged. The story was similar on the NSE, where 1,965 stocks ended in the red compared to 882 in the green.

Of the 30 stocks in the Sensex, 25 closed with losses, while 41 of the 50 stocks in the Nifty ended lower.The BSE Sensex opened with a minor gain of 22.15 points at 84,000.64 and touched an intraday high of 84,068.01. However, it soon succumbed to selling pressure, plunging over 655 points from its peak to an intraday low of 83,412.77.

After a slight recovery, it closed at 83,459.15, down 519.34 points.Similarly, the NSE Nifty started the day at 25,744.75 and briefly touched a high of 25,787.40 before widespread selling pushed it to an intraday low of 25,578.40. The index closed at 25,597.65, down 165.70 points.

Among the major stocks, the top gainers included Titan Company (2.39%), Bharti Airtel (1.89%), Bajaj Finance (1.33%), Mahindra & Mahindra (0.91%), and HDFC Life (0.88%). The day's biggest losers were Power Grid Corporation (3.11%), Coal India (2.83%), Eternal (2.82%), Tata Motors Passenger Vehicle Limited (TMPV) (2.52%), and ONGC (2.02%).

---------------

Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar