On Friday, the Sensex crashed over 1,400 points as rising cases of a new coronavirus variant in South Africa spooked global markets. Global market sentiment was weakened by a surge in coronavirus cases in Europe.
The 30 stock index lost 1,488 points to 57,307 against the previous close of 58,795. Nifty lost 408 points to 17,127.
Sensex opened lower earlier in the day due to weak global cues. At 9: 16 am, Sensex declined by over 700 points to 58,072. 66 and Nifty fell 223.9 points to 17,312. Three of the 30 Sensex stocks were trading in the green in the afternoon.
Tata Steel, Maruti, Bajaj Finance, IndusInd Bank, and HDFC were the top Sensex losers, falling to 3.95%.
Dr Reddy's, TCS and Nestle India were the only Sensex gainers, rising to 3.52%.
The mid-cap and small-cap indexes of the BSE fell 544 points and 384 points.
Consumer durables, banking, auto and metal shares led the losses today. Consumer durables, banking, metal and auto indexes fell 986 points, 1,080 points, 612 points and 747 points respectively.
The BSE healthcare index was the only gainer among the 19 BSE sectoral indexes, rising 449 points to 25,778.
The market cap of the BSE-listed firms fell to Rs 261.26 lakh crore against the previous close of Rs 265.66 lakh crore.
The market's breadth was negative with 1024 shares trading higher against 2,114 stocks in the red. 135 shares were the same.
The Indian market closed higher on Thursday, backed by gains in index heavyweight Reliance Industries, amid a positive trend in global markets. The Sensex ended 454.10 points higher at 58,795 and Nifty increased by 121 points to 17,536. Reliance Industries was the top Sensex gainer, up over 6 per cent, followed by ITC, Infosys, Tech Mahindra, Titan, Bharti Airtel and PowerGrid.
Domestic institutional investors DIIs bought shares worth Rs 1,367 crore, as per the provisional data available on the NSE, as foreign institutional investors FIIs sold shares worth Rs 2,300 crore on November 25, and domestic institutional investors FIIs bought shares worth Rs 1,367 crore.
The Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.4% to 3,569. The Nikkei 225 and 86 in Tokyo plunged by an unusually wide 2.5% margin to 28,779. The Hang Seng fell 1.9% to 24,260 in Hong Kong. The Kospi in Seoul lost 1% to 2,949. 71 and Sydney's S&P-ASX 200 fell to 7,301. New Zealand and Southeast Asian markets also declined.
Austria announced a nationwide 10 day lock down after it tripled its daily virus deaths. The US advised its citizens to avoid Germany and Denmark.