Closing Bell: Nifty ends below 17450, Sensex slumps by 323 points, Paytm surges 17%

Equity benchmark indices ended lower in a volatile trading session on Wednesday dragged lower by auto, FMCG and IT stocks, while banks provided some support.

Domestic equity benchmarks after a day's halt resumed declining dragged lower by losses in heavyweights like Infosys, Reliance Industries, ITC, HDFC, Larsen & Toubro, Tata Consultancy Services and Maruti Suzuki. For the most part of the day, benchmarks traded higher, but selling pressure in the last hour of the trading session around resistance levels of 17,600 on Nifty led to a sharp correction. During today's trade, the Sensex fell as much as 825 points from the day's highest level and Nifty touched an intraday low of 17,354.

At the closing bell on Wednesday, the Sensex was down 323.34 points or 0.55% at 58,340.99, and the Nifty was down 88.30 points or 0.50% at 17,415. On the market breadth, around 1950 shares have advanced, 1249 shares declined, and 142 shares were unchanged.

Among the top losers on the Nifty 50 were, Tata Consumer Products, Eicher Motors, Infosys, Maruti Suzuki and Grasim Industries, while the top gainers included ONGC, Adani Ports, Coal India, Kotak Mahindra Bank and BPCL.

On a sectoral basis, auto, IT and FMCG indices fell 1% each, while buying was seen in the oil & gas and banking stocks. In the broader markets, the BSE midcap index fell by 0.5%, while smallcap index added 0.4%.

Among the trending stocks of the day was Paytm. The shares of its parent company One97 Communications' continued to surge for a second straight day on Wednesday, staging a comeback after a series of losses. This helped Paytm share price to inch towards its issue price of Rs 2,150. In the first couple of days after starting its journey in the market, the digital payment platform's stock had lost 36.7% of its value compared to the issue price. Termed as the biggest Indian IPO, emerged to be one of the weakest debutants of recent times.