Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Global uncertainties and heightened volatility because of geopolitical tensions, the possibility of the Iran-Israel war escalating across the Middle East, dragged down Indian stocks on Thursday.
Amid a significant sell-off, the Indian stock markets witnessed a sharp decline.
The BSE Sensex plummeted 1,769.19 points (2.10 percent) to close at 82,497.10, while the Nifty 50 tumbled 546.80 points (2.12 percent) to end at 25,250.10, reports said.
The market opened with a gap-down and faced sustained selling pressure throughout the session, marking the fourth consecutive day of decline for the Nifty index.
The sectoral performance was overwhelmingly negative, with realty, auto, energy, and financials emerging as major laggards, declining between 2.43 percent and 4.36 percent.
The broader market also felt the heat, as evidenced by the Nifty Midcap 100 index dropping 2.21 percent and the Nifty Small Cap 100 index falling 1.96 percent.
Amid global chaos and churning, the Indian stock market bled heavily on Thursday, as a fresh flare-up in Iran-Israel tensions soured Dalal Street sentiment. This volatility made investors poorer by Rs 9.6 trillion.
Twenty-eight of the 30 Sensex stocks and 48 of the 50 Nifty stocks suffered losses on Thursday, the day of the weekly F&O expiry.
Among individual stocks, BPCL, Shriram Finance, L&T, Tata Motors, Reliance Industries, Asian Paints, Axis Bank, Eicher Motors, Maruti Suzuki, Tata Consumer Products, and Bajaj Finance tumbled between 3.5 percent and 5 percent.
JSW Steel and ONGC were the only large-cap gainers on Thursday.
In the broader markets, the Nifty MidCap index dropped 2.2 percent and the Nifty SmallCap index skidded 1.9 percent. Fear gauge, India VIX, soared 9.4 percent today.
Among sectors, all indices saw a bloodbath led by the Nifty Realty (down 4.6 percent), the Nifty Auto index (2.7 percent), and the Nifty Private Bank index (2.5 per cent).