Sensex falls over 400 points, Nifty below 25,150 dragged by Reliance, ICICI Bank

The Indian equity benchmarks fell on Friday dragged down by losses in index heavyweights Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank , Bajaj Finance, HDFC Bank and Asian Paints. The Sensex fell as much as 446 points and Nifty 50 index dropped below its important psychological level of 25,150 as investor sentiment was shaken back heavy selling by foreign institutional investors (FIIs). The FIIs sold shares worth Rs 15,243 crore on Thursday amid rising geo-political tensions between Iran and Israel.

As of 9:32 am, the Sensex was down 434 points at 82,062 and Nifty 50 index declined 148 points to 25,102.

FIIs have been on a selling spree in Indian markets since start of this month after China announced slew of stimulus measures to revive its ailing economy in what could be flight of money from Indian markets to China, analysts said.

Meanwhile, most of the Asian markets were trading higher with Japan's Nikkei rising 0.34 per cent, Hong Kong's Hang Seng up 0.30 per cent and South Korea's KOSPI advancing 0.78 per cent.

Overnight, Wall Street's main indexes closed lower after trading slightly higher early in the session. Data released on Thursday showed rising US jobless claims, indicating labor market softness, but strong service-sector activity. The closely watched nonfarm payrolls report for September is due on Friday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.44 per cent to 42,011.59, the S&P 500 fell 0.17 per cent to 5,699.94 and the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.04 per cent to 17,918.48.

Back home, selling pressure was broad-based as all the 13 sector gauges, barring the measure of IT shares, were trading lower led by the Nifty Realty index's 2.4 per cent fall. Nifty Oil & Gas, Consumer Durables, Pharma, Metal, Financial Services and Auto indices also fell between 0.5-1 per cent.

Mid- and small-cap shares were also facing selling pressure as Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 indices fell over 1 per cent each.

Bharat Petroleum was top Nifty loser, the stock fell 3.3 per cent to Rs 337 on the back of rising rude oil prices in international markets.

Bajaj Finance, Trent, Asian Paints, Hero MotoCorp, Bajaj Finserv, Shriram Finance, Cipla, Tata Steel and NTPC were also among the losers.

On the other hand, ONGC was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose 1.5 per cent. SBI Life, HDFC Life, Tata Consultancy Services, IndusInd Bank, Infosys and HCL Technologies were among the gainers.

The overall market breadth was extremely negative as 2,032 shares were declining while 922 were advancing on the BSE.