The Sensex closed down 332 points at 17,995, slipping below the 18,000 mark and the Nifty shed 102 points to close at 5,403.
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The Sensex continues to hover around the day's low of 17,997 with the index at 18,020, down around 300 points. The Nifty has shed 95 points at 5,410. In the broader markets, the smallcaps and the midcaps are down 1.2% and 1.4% respectively outperforming the Sensex which is down 1.7%.
Earlier in the day, the Sensex had opened in the green on the back of positive Asian markets but quickly pared its gains as the selling by the foreign funds weighed on investor sentiment.The downfall continued through the day and in the afternnon trades the index had touched a low of 17,997, shedding 409 points from the day's opening.
On the Asian front all the indices closed in the green. The top gainers for the day were Jakarta Composite gaining 0.8%, Taiwan Weighted and the Nikkei adding 0.5% and 0.4% respectively. The Hang Seng gained 0.1% to close at 23,483.
In China the official purchasing managers' index (PMI) gauge of manufacturing slipped to 52.9 in January, indicating slowing growth in the sector after December's 53.9 reading.The Shanghai Composite closed adding 0.3%.
The positive mode was seen in the European market too which started in the positive. CAC is up 0.4% while DAX and FTSE are up 0.7% each.
The aviation stocks are trading lower on the bourses since morning after state-owned oil firms hiked jet fuel prices by a massive 4.5%, the biggest hike in almost a year, on the back of spiralling international oil prices. Among the individual stocks – SpiceJet is down 9, Jet Airways is down 6% and Kingfisher Airlines is down 5% on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).
All the sectoral indices are trading in the negative with FMCG, Realty, Auto and Capital goods down 2% each forming the major losers. Consumer Durables and PSU down 0.5% each are the least affected.
The vehicle sales data for the month of January was released today. Chennai-based TVS Motor Company today reported a 30%t jump in sales to 165,152 units on a YoY basis while country's largest car-maker Maruti Suzuki India reported a 14.73% jump in sales to 1,09,743 units.Two-wheeler maker Suzuki Motorcycle India reported 40% growth to 28,598 units and Mahindra & Mahindra's vehicle sales rose 22% to 36,718 units.
