Sensex drops 217 points, Nifty below 11,000 on sell-off in banking, pharma stocks

The BSE Sensex started positive at 36,658.71, but ended at 36,323.77, down 217.86 points, or 0.60%. The 50-share NSE Nifty too felt the selling pressure and settled down by 82.05 points, or 0.74%, at 10,936.85.

Market benchmark BSE Sensex dropped by around 218 points or 0.60% due to continued sell-off in banking, pharma, and metal stocks amid foreign fund outflows and weak Asian cues.

The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) building is pictured next to a police van in Mumbai. (REUTERS File Photo)

The broad-based Nifty cracked below the 11,000-mark as 35 of its constituents closed in the red, led by pharma and metal shares.

Investors turned cautious after India’s trade deficit widened to a more than three-and-a-half-year high of $16.6 billion due to costlier crude oil imports and inflation based on wholesale prices shot up to 5.77% in June, brokers said.

Asian stock markets too were down as data showed growth in China’s economy slowed in the second quarter, and investors remain cautious over the impact of heated China-US trade war.

The 30-share BSE Sensex started positive at 36,658.71, but the higher levels gave way as the gauge ended at 36,323.77, down 217.86 points, or 0.60%. In intra-day trading, it also hit a low of 36,298.94.

It had shed 6.78 points in the previous session on Friday after scaling a life time high of 36,740.07 (intra-day).

Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares worth a net Rs 1,104.65 crore on Friday while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) net bought shares worth Rs 872 crore, as per provisional data.