Sensex closes over 150 points, Nifty falls below 10,900

Brokers said auto sector stocks were centre of nervous selling, triggered by dismal quarterly earnings posted by leading auto makers.

Mumbai: Markets extended losses for yet another session Monday, with the BSE Sensex falling over 150 points and the NSE Nifty slipping below the 10,900. Heavy selloff was witnessed in banking, realty, auto and pharma stocks.

The BSE Sensex fell 151.45 percent or 0.41 percent to 36,395.03. The gauge had lost nearly 429 points in the previous two sessions. Intra-day it shuttled between 36,588.41 and 36,300.48 points

The NSE Nifty dropped 54.80 points or 0.50 percent to 10,888.80. It oscillated between intraday low of 10,857.10 and a high of 10,930.90.

M&M, emerging as the biggest loser in the Sensex pack by plunging nearly 5 percent after it reported 11.44 percent decline in standalone profit after tax (PAT) at Rs 1,076.81 crore on Friday for the third quarter ended December 31, 2018.

Other losers include ONGC, Bajaj Finance, Reliance, SBI, Hero MotoCorp, ICICI Bank, L&T, Vedanta, Yes Bank and Axis Bank, falling up to 2.54 percent.

On the other hand, Tata Steel, PowerGrid, HCL Tech, Kotak Bank and Maruti were the top gainers on Sensex, rising up to 2.31 percent.

Meanwhile, on a net basis, domestic institutional investors (DIIs) sold shares worth Rs 960.04 crore, while foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth Rs 843.73 crore on Friday, provisional data released by the stock exchanges showed.

With PTI Inputs