Closing Bell: Indian market ends with sharp losses; Nifty slips below 18150

Domestic equity benchmarks Sensex and Nifty ended in red on Tuesday with losses across sectors, led by IT, oil and gas and automobile shares pulling the headline indices lower.

Following weak cues from the global markets, domestic bourses witnessed a highly volatile trade ahead of the press conference by the Finance Minister today.

Amid selling seen in the final hour of the session on January 18, the Indian equity benchmarks plunged amid an across-the-board sell-off led by automobile, metal and information technology names. During today's trade, both the benchmarks swung between gains and losses before settling in the red zone.

At the closing bell on Tuesday, the Sensex was down 554.05 points or 0.90% at 60,754.86, and the Nifty was down 195.10 points or 1.07% at 18,113. On the market breadth around 1007 shares have advanced, 2218 shares declined, and 59 shares are unchanged.

Top Nifty losers on a dragging day were Tata Consumer Products, Maruti Suzuki, UltraTech Cement, Eicher Motors and Tech Mahindra, while the top gainers included Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, Dr Reddy’s Labs, ICICI Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank.

The same picture was reflected in sectors as well as all the sectoral indices closed in the red with auto, IT, capital goods, metal, realty, pharma and FMCG down 1-2%. In the broader market, BSE midcap and smallcap indices were down 1-2%.

On the BSE platform, Maruti, UltraTech Cements, Tech Mahindra, HCL Tech, Tata Steel and IndusInd Bank attracted the most losses with their shares slumping as much as 4.05%.

In other news, global markets witnessed selling pressure following a surge in US treasury yield amid rate hike worries, while oil prices rose on supply tension owing to the drone attack on UAE.