The Indian equity indices slumped on Monday, tracking a global selloff induced by fears of resurgence in coronavirus cases across countries.
However, bucking the larger trend, shares of Reliance Industries (RIL) touched a record high of Rs 1,626.70, on the back of the latest investments into Jio Platforms. On Saturday, RIL announced an investment of Rs 4,547 crore by TPG Capital and Rs 1,894.50 crore by L. Catterton taking the total investment raised by Jio to Rs 1.04 lakh crore from leading global investors in just three weeks.
Heavy selling was witnessed across sectors led by the banking and finance stocks. The S&P BSE Banking stocks fell 3.53 per cent and the Finance index closed 2.85 per cent lower.
Net selling by foreign institutional investors during the day stood at Rs 2,960.33 crore, while domestic institutional investors took to more of buying and net purchase by them was Rs 1,076.38 crore.
Rahul Sharma, Head of Equity at Equity99 Advisors, said: "Ongoing global sell-off had its rub off impart on the domestic markets as the fear of the second wave of Covid-19 infections is underway. Markets across the globe are reeling under sell pressure as the number of Covid-19 cases rises thus putting brakes on global economic growth."
Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research at HDFC Securities, said that major Asian markets have closed on a negative note. European indices like the FTSE, CAC and DAX have ended lower.
On the technical front, he said: "With the Nifty correcting further and making a lower top, the short term trend remains down. Further downsides are likely once the immediate support of 9,726 is broken. Any rallies could find resistance at 9,943."
On Monday, Nifty closed at 9,813.70, lower by 159.20 points or 1.60 per cent from its previous close of 9,972.90.
The Sensex closed at 33,228.80, lower by 552.09 points or 1.63 per cent from its previous close of 33,780.89.
It had opened at 33,670.55 and touched an intra-day high of 33,670.55 and a low of 32,923.74 points.
Among the stocks, RIL was the topmost gainer on the Sensex. It, however, retreated from its all-time high of Rs 1,626.70, to close at Rs 1,615.00, higher by 1.65 per cent from its previous close.
The only other gainers on the Sensex were HCL Technologies (up 1.22 per cent), Sun Pharmaceuticals (up 1.18 per cent) and ONGC (up 0.18 per cent).
The major losers were IndusInd Bank (down 7.27 per cent), Axis Bank (down 4.55 per cent), Bajaj Finance (down 4.03 per cent), ICICI Bank (down 3.88 per cent) and NTPC (down 3.87 per cent).
( With inputs from IANS )