Sensex, Nifty decline for sixth straight session on aggressive FII selling

The Indian equity benchmarks fell for sixth straight session on Monday on the back as rising geo-political tensions between Iran and Israel which has led to foreign institutional investors offloading shares in Indian markets. The Sensex dropped as whopping 1,412 points from day's highest level and Nifty 50 index tumbled below its important psychological level of 25,000. Meanwhile, flight of money from Indian markets to China, after it announced slew of measures to revive its economy, has led to aggressive selling of shares by FIIs.

The Sensex ended 638 points lower at 81,050 and Nifty 50 index dropped 219 points to close at 24,796.

In the last six trading sessions, the Nifty has plunged 5.42 per cent and 30-share Sensex has crashed 5.57 per cent, data from stock exchanges showed.

FIIs have sold shares worth Rs 36,787 crore since start of this month. This comes after they bought shares worth Rs 57,724 crore last month, according to data from NSDL.

Meanwhile, selling pressure was broad-based as all the 13 sector gauges, barring the measure of IT shares, ended lower led by Nifty PSU Bank index's over 3 per cent fall. Nifty Bank, Financial Services, Medi, Metal, Private Bank, Consumer Durables and Oil & Gas indices also fell between 2-3 per cent.

Mid- cap and small-cap shares also faced selling pressure as Nifty Midcap 100 index fell 2.01 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index dropped 2.75 per cent.

Adani Ports was top Nifty loser, the stock fell 4.3 per cent to Rs 1,353. Bharat Electronics, Adani Enterprises, NTPC, Power Grid, State Bank of India, Titan, Axis Bank, Hindalco and ONGC also fell between 2-3.5 per cent.

On the flipside, Trent, Mahindra & Mahindra, Bharti Airtel, ITC, Bajaj Finance and Infosys were among the gainers.

The overall market breadth was extremely negative as 3,418 shares ended lower while 640 closed higher on the BSE.