Closing Bell: Markets close red for a third straight session, Sensex falls by 678 points, Nifty ends at 17671

Domestic benchmark indices ended the week on a weak note for the third consecutive day on October 29, 2021.

The Indian markets closed in red for the third day in a row on Friday, dragged by banking and financial services shares. Index heavyweight Reliance Industries came under selling pressure. Consistent selling by foreign institutional investors amid a downgrade of Indian equities by global investment bank Morgan Stanley dented the investor sentiments. During today's trade, the Sensex fell as much as 895 points and the Nifty index touched an intraday low of 17,613.

At the closing bell, the Sensex was down 677.77 points or 1.13% at 59,306.93, and the Nifty was down 185.60 points or 1.04% at 17,671.70. On the overall market breadth, around 1326 shares have advanced, 1836 shares declined, and 157 shares are unchanged.

Top losers in the Friday trading session were, Tech Mahindra, NTPC, Kotak Mahindra Bank, IndusInd Bank, Reliance and L&T. Top gainers of the day were, UltraTech Cement, Maruti Suzuki, Cipla, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories and Shree Cements.

Among the sectors, bank, IT energy, power and oil & gas indices closed in red, while buying was witnessed in the realty, pharma, metal and auto shares. In the broader markets, the BSE midcap and smallcap indices ended with marginal change.

On stock activity, shares of the Indian Railways' catering, tourism and online ticketing arm - Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) staged a strong recovery after the Ministry of Railways withdrew IRCTC convenience fee-sharing decision.

RBL Bank today went down as much as 15 per cent to hit an intraday low of Rs 172.10 a day after it reported September quarter earnings.