Indian equities fell sharply for the second day on Monday amid rising Covid-19 cases. Both Sensex and Nifty traded below 2-month low.
India recorded 1,68,912 new Covid in the last 24 hours, the sixth record rise in seven days, pushing the country's caseload to over 13.5 million. The resurgence of the virus led to 904 new deaths, taking the total death count to 1,70,179.
At the close, the benchmark 30-share index, BSE Sensex declined 1,707.94 points or 3.44% at 47,883.38 with 28 components registering drop. Meanwhile, the broad based NSE Nifty went down by 524.05 points or 3.53% at 14,310.80 with 50 components posting drop.
Mahindra & Mahindra contributed fall of 61.88 points in the Sensex. It was followed by Tata Consultancy Services (61.1 points), Bharti Airtel (49.48 points), Infosys (34.28 points) and Tata Steel (32.11 points).
All shares in the Sensex settled with a negative note. Indusind Bank (8.60%), Bajaj Finance (7.39%), State Bank Of India (6.87%), Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (5.54%) and Tata Steel (5.32%) were the major losers in the Sensex pack.
Dr Reddy's (4.83%) was the only gainer in the 30-share index.
Market breadth was negative with 510 advances against 2,477 declines.