Sensex falls over 700 points; IT and metal sectors drag
The Sensex and Nifty indices on Tuesday witnessed a slump, ending the 5-day winning streak with investors focusing on the upcoming U.S. Federal Reserve meeting. While Sensex slipped 709.17 points or 1.27% to 55,776.85 points, Nifty shed 208.3 points to close at 16,663. The midcap stocks witnessed a bearish run with the Nifty Midcap 50 shedding 66 points to end at 7,740.1 points.
Nifty Auto, Nifty Consumption, and Nifty FMCG were the top gaining sectors of the market, gaining 0.56%, 0.3%, and 0.17%, respectively. Meanwhile, the top gaining stocks were Bandhan Bank, AU Small Finance, and Motherson Sumi. Nifty Metal, Nifty IT, and Nifty PSE emerged as the biggest losing sectors, plunging 4.25%, 2.65%, and 2.39%, respectively. Noteworthy stock losers were Balrampur Chini, Mindtree, and Tata Steel.
The Indian rupee (INR) depreciated by 0.04% to end at Rs. 77.26 against the US Dollar in the forex trade on March 15. Meanwhile, prices of both gold and silver futures witnessed a decline, with the former slipping 1.3% and the latter shedding 1.52% to settle at Rs. 51,664 and Rs. 67,886, respectively. Notably, crude oil futures also slipped 6.8% to $95.56 per barrel.
As far as the Asian markets are concerned, the Shanghai Composite Index plunged 4.95% to 3,063.97 points while the Hang Seng Index declined by 5.72% to 18,415.08 points. The Nikkei index, however, witnessed a marginal rise of 0.15% to close at 25,346.48 points.
Fuel prices in New Delhi remained the same on Tuesday with diesel and petrol priced at Rs. 86.71 per liter and Rs. 95.45 per liter, respectively. Mumbai also did not see any changes in fuel prices. While diesel bore a price-tag of Rs. 94.13 per liter, the price of petrol was fixed at Rs. 109.96 per liter.
