The six-session rally of equity benchmarks came to a juddering halt on Monday as a flare-up in India-China border tensions hammered investor sentiment.
Profit-booking after the recent rally and a depreciating rupee further weighed on the bourses, traders said.
The BSE Sensex, which made a strong start and touched the 40000-mark in the morning session, surrendered all gains and plummeted over 1600 points from the day’s high. It ended at 38628.29, down 839.02 points, or 2.13 per cent.
The NSE Nifty tanked 260.10 points, or 2.23 per cent, to end at 11387.50.
Sun Pharma was the top loser in the Sensex pack, plunging 7.34 per cent, followed by SBI, Bajaj Finserv, Bajaj Finance, NTPC, ICICI Bank, Kotak Bank, M&M and Maruti. RIL closed 1.75 per cent lower following its deal to acquire Future Group’s retail, wholesale, logistics and warehousing businesses for Rs 24,713 crore.
Investors were also cautious ahead of the release of GDP data, traders said.
Only ONGC and TCS ended in the green, rising up to 1.74 per cent.
Indian markets opened on a positive note, but the sentiment failed to sustain in the afternoon session following reports of the border tensions with China, said Narendra Solanki, head-equity research (fundamental), Anand Rathi.
“Also the Sebi’s new margining system starts from Tuesday which also likely impacted mid- and small-cap stocks where aggressive profit booking was seen,” he added.
All sectoral indices ended in the red with BSE realty, healthcare, basic materials, utilities, power, capital goods, industrials, metal and auto skidding up to 4.70 per cent.