Stocks continued to lose ground for the third straight session amid expectations of weak earnings with the benchmark Nifty falling over 44 points to end at 7,855.05 even global markets braced ahead of Fed meet.
Immense selling pressure was witnessed across the sectors with financials metal and energy stocks leading the slide.
The overall sentiment remained edgy due to global sluggishness as the recent risk rally ran out of steam ahead of major world central bank meetings and also some caution in the face of April derivative contracts expire on Thursday, a traditionally volatile period in markets.
Taking cue from the global downturn, trading resumed on a subdued note following profit-taking in key heavyweight stocks, mainly in Reliance Industries despite good quarterly performance.
But regained strength to reclaim the key 7,900 mark briefly before falling back in mid-afternoon trade.
The 50-share index opened lower at 7,894.80 and swung between a high of 7,911 and a low of 7,827 before finishing at 7,855.05, showing a sharp fall of 44.25 points, or 0.56 per cent.
On the sectoral front, Nifty PSU Bank tumbled (1.71 per cent), Energy (1.57 per cent), Metal (1.27 per cent), Auto (0.94 per cent) Pharma (0.90 per cent), FMCG (0.81 per cent), Infra (0.43 per cent) and Nifty Bank (0.15 per cent).
The broader markets too witnessed heavy selling with the NSE Midcap and Smallcap indices falling 0.59 per cent and 0.56 per cent, respectively.
However, Technology counter saw a modest 0.10 gain.
Major laggards were Reliance, HDFC, ITC, Maruti, Tata Motors, Sun Pharma, SBI, Axis Bank, Bharti Infratel, ONGC, NTPC, Power Grid, Eicher Motors, TechM and Asian Paints.
Among the gainers included TCS, Infosys, Bharti Artel, ICICI Bank, Kotak Bank, BPCL, Adani Ports, Bajaj Auto, HDFC Bank, Ambuja Cement, Idea, Bosch and ACC.
Turnover in cash segment dropped to Rs 14,787.11 crore compared to Rs 15,665.65 crore last Friday.
A total of 7,512.30 lakh shares changed hands in 66,03,499 trades. The market capitalisation of the NSE stood at Rs 95,23,444 crore.
