The Indian equity indices witnessed a sharp sell-off on August 2 led by weakness in the global indices post Fitch Ratings’ downgrade of the US sovereign credit rating. At close, the Sensex was down 676.53 points or 1.02 percent at 65,782.78, and the Nifty was down 207.00 points or 1.05 percent at 19,526.50.In today's fall, investors' wealth eroded by Rs 3.56 lakh crore, as the market capitalisation of BSE-listed companies slipped to Rs 303.24 lakh crore, from Rs 306.80 lakh crore in the previous session.
The biggest losers on the Nifty were Hero MotoCorp, Tata Motors, Tata Steel, NTPC and Bajaj Finserv, while gainers were Divis Labs, Nestle India, HUL, Tech Mahindra and Asian Paints. Among individual stocks, a volume spike of more than 200 percent was seen in Aditya Birla Capital, Cholamandalam Investment and Finance Company and Abbott India. On the other hand, Divi's Labs (up 1.52 per cent), Nestle (up 0.94 per cent), Hindustan Unilever (up 0.82 per cent), Asian Paints (up 0.54 per cent) and Tech Mahindra (up 0.35 per cent) ended in the green in the Nifty pack. Mid and smallcaps underperformed the benchmark. The BSE Midcap index fell 1.39 per cent and the Smallcap index declined 1.18 per cent.