Indian markets continued their downward spiral for the seventh straight session after exit polls predicted BJP's defeat in Delhi elections amid a mixed bag of corporate earnings, rattling investors confidence.
It sent the CNX Nifty plummeting sharply by a massive 135 points to close below the 8,600 mark. The bellwether index has lost over 426 points or 4.76 per cent from the all-time closing high levels.
Though todays sell-off is a knee jerk reaction to the exit polls giving majority to Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi elections, lacklustre third-quarter earnings from India Inc with the exception of a handful of big blowouts, caution ahead of GDP data release and weak rupee mainly depressed trading sentiment.
After a gap-down opening, the key indices remained under intense selling pressure throughout the session.
"There is a lot of volatility in the market related to domestic alongwith Greece uncertainty and also US interest rate hike worries, a floor trader said.
Meanwhile, other Asian and emerging markets ended mixed following lacklustre trade data from China amid concerns over Greece and also possibility of an earlier Fed rate hike.
The broader 50-share index moved between a high of 8,605.55 and a low of 8,516.35 before ending at 8,526.35, down sharply by 134.70, or 1.56 per cent over its last close.
The selling was indiscriminate as all sectoral indices bore the brunt of the intense sell-off even as mid-cap and small-cap crumbled.
Inrastructure sector sold off heavily with unwinding of long positions followed by Metal 2.65 per cent, Realty 2.55 per cent, Auto 2.38 per cent, Bank 2.04 per cent, FMCG 1.37 per cent and Energy 1.14 per cent.
Construction major L&T topped the selling list after Q3 earnings disappointed street with the share price taking a hammering, down 6.60 per cent.
Other biggest index losers included ICICI Bank, Tata Motors, TCS, SBI ITC, HDFC Bank, Reliance, M&M, Axis Bank, Tata Steel, Bharti Artl, HDFC, Cipla, Sesa Sterlite, Maruti, Zee, GAIL, Indusind, TechM, Grasim and Heromotoco.
However, a handful of frontline stocks withstood the market carnage and posted gains were Infosys, Sun Pharma, ONGC, HCL-Tech, Dr Reddy, Bajaj Auto and Wipro.
Turnover in the cash segment slumped to Rs 15,277.25 crore from Rs 17,311.86 crore last Friday. A total of 8,207.69 lakh shares changed hands in 74,68,887 trades. The market capitalisation at NSE stood at Rs 97,98,096 crore.
