The Indian stock market remained under pressure on Thursday amid rising geopolitical tensions and a spike in Brent crude prices to wartime high.
At close, the Sensex was down 582.86 points or 0.75 per cent at 76,913.50, and the Nifty was down 180.1 points or 0.74 per cent at 23,997.55. Nifty midcap index shed 1 per cent and smallcap index fell 0.5 per cent.
The overall market capitalisation of BSE-listed firms dropped to Rs 464 lakh crore from nearly Rs 469 lakh crore in the previous session.
Among the sectors, most of the indices traded in the red, barring the Nifty IT index. Nifty Auto, metal and PSU Bank indices were down up to 2 per cent, while banking, realty, and metal stocks also saw sharp declines.
India’s rupee weakened further to fresh record low of 95.33 per dollar, breaching its previous low of 95.12 hit in late March.
On Nifty, the gainers were Bajaj Auto, Sun Pharma, Infosys, Tech Mahindra, Bajaj Finance while on the losing end were Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles, Hindalco Industries, Eternal, HUL, Axis Bank.
Vedanta emerged as the top laggard as its shares appeared to plunge 65% after turning ex-demerger.
More than 100 stocks touched their 52-week high on the BSE. These included Himadri Speciality, HFCL, Sai Life Sciences, Coal India, Hitachi Energy, Navin Fluorine, ONGC, Apar Industries, MCX India, Lloyds Metals, Chennai Petro, among others.
Led by Axis Bank and Canara Bank, the private bank and PSU bank indices also fell up to 2 percent, while Indian Bank dropped more than 3 percent.
India VIX rose more than 11 percent to 19.36, signalling heightened volatility and nervousness among investors.
Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, traded 5 percent higher at USD 124 per barrel.