Market lost ground for the second straight day today with the benchmark Nifty tumbling by over 67 points to close below the significant 7,900 barrier even as Fed chair Janet Yellen laid the ground for the US central bank's first rate hike in nearly a decade.
Sentiment turned highly cautious after overnight hawkish-sounding comments from Federal Reserve reinforced the case for an interest rate hike later this month, triggering concerns that emerging markets may see a capital flight.
Trading commenced on a sluggish note in line with global peers against the backdrop of overnight developments and witnessed a range-bound session with negative bias in early part of the day.
However, the sell-off got intensified during the final hour of trade as participants opted to offload their long positions. They were also impacted by the softer tone from the monthly PMI survey which fell to 50.1 in November, from an eight-month high of 53.2 in October, as per the business survey conducted by Markit and Nikkei.
The 50-share Nifty index opened weak at 7,902.30 and plummeted to hit an intra-day low of 7,853.30 before finishing at 7,864.15, a steep fall of 67.20 points, or 0.30 per cent.
On the sectoral front, FMCG tumbled 1.54 per cent, followed by metals (1.47 per cent), pharma (1.16 per cent), Nifty PSU Bank (1.44 per cent), auto (0.97 per cent), energy (0.64 per cent) and IT (0.61 per cent).
Mid-cap and small-caps fell the most.
Realty counter largely withstood the sell-off.
Big losers included ITC, ICICI Bank, HDFC, ONGC, Tata Motors, SBI, Lupin, M&M, HUL, TCS, Hero MotoCorp, Infosys, Kotak Mahindra, L&T, HCL-tech, Sun Pharma and Bharti Airtel.
Among the outperformers were Axis Bank, IndusInd Bank, Tech-M, UltraTech Cement, Maruti, NTPC and Yes Bank.
Meanwhile, Chennai-based industries, namely Apollo Tyres, TVS Motors, India Cements and Ashok Leyland witnessed heavy unwinding due to closure of operations caused by heavy rains.
Turnover in cash segment slumped to Rs 15,984.53 crore compared to Rs 16,135 crore yesterday. A total of 10,772.54 lakh shares changed hands in 71,17,357 trades.
The market capitalisation of NSE stood at Rs 96,54,241 crore.
