Closing Bell: Bloodbath on Dalal Street; all sectors close in red

Domestic equity benchmarks Sensex and Nifty ended Thursday's session deep in the red owing to a global sell-off, as concerns about flaming inflation and its impact on world economic growth resurfaced.

Indian equity market extended its fall for the second straight day as fears over slower economic growth due to rising inflation jolted investor sentiment. The headline indices were bleeding, mirroring a weak trend in the Asian market after an overnight decline on Wall Street which witnessed the worst since mid-2020. The focus now remains on how central banks globally will act while trying to regain control of inflation, which is now at 40-year highs in the UK and USA, without causing painful recessions. Owing to these developments, Indian benchmark indices ended lower for the second consecutive session.

At the closing bell on May 19, the Sensex was down 1,416.30 points or 2.61% at 52,792.23, and the Nifty was down 430.90 points or 2.65% at 15,809.40. On the market breadth, 838 shares have advanced, 2413 shares declined, and 122 shares are unchanged.

Top Nifty losers on a bleeding day were Wipro, HCL Technologies, TCS, Tech Mahindra and Infosys, while top gainers included ITC, Dr Reddy's Laboratories and Power Grid Corporation. In the top drags, HCL Tech was the top Nifty loser as the stock lost 5.80 per cent to Rs 1,011.40. Also, shares of Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) slipped 4.05% to close at Rs 840.75 today.

All the sectoral indices closed in the red with metal, and IT indices losing 4-5%. In the broad markets, the BSE midcap and smallcap indices lost over 2% each.

JP Morgan in its report on India's IT sector said, "Soaring inflation, supply chain issues and the hit from the Ukraine war will bring an end to the growth boom India`s IT services industry enjoyed during the pandemic."