The BSE Sensex erased all its early gains to end lower by 175 points in see-saw trade on Tuesday, posting its fourth fall in five sessions due to widespread selling in auto, consumer, realty, oil and gas, and banking stocks amid worries over weakening rupee and boiling crude oil prices.
Market sentiments were further dampened on unabated foreign fund outflows and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) downgrading outlook for the world economy to 3.7 growth on Tuesday.
The Indian currency collapsed to a new lifetime low of 74.27 in intra-day trade, raising concerns on the macroeconomic front.
A mixed trend at other Asian markets and a lower opening in the eurozone too triggered selling on the domestic bourses.
The 30-share Sensex opened higher at 34,651.82 points but slipped into the negative zone to hit a low of 34,233.50 before concluding at 34,299.47, recording a fall of 174.91 points, or 0.51 per cent. Similarly, the NSE Nifty after shuttling between 10,397.60 and 10,279.35 points, ended 47 points, or 0.45 per cent, lower at 10,301.05.
Selling was more pronounced in consumer durables, auto, oil and gas, FMCG, realty, PSU and banking stocks that dragged the indices into the negative zone. Among Sensex constituents, Tata Motors was the worst hit, plunging 13.40 per cent to end at the multi-year low of Rs 184.25, after the company-owned Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) reported 12.3 per cent decline in global sales in September.
Other laggards include Asian Paints falling 3.95 per cent, Maruti Suzuki 3.07 per cent, HUL 2.73 per cent, Bharti Airtel 2.29 per cent, Bajaj Auto 1.85 per cent, ITC 1.81 per cent, RIL 1.58 per cent, ICICI Bank 1.50 per cent, M&M 1.36 per cent, SBI 1.26 per cent, NTPC 1.22 per cent, Axis Bank 0.67 per cent and HDFC Bank 0.17 per cent.
In contrast, Adani Ports emerged as the top gainer by rising 4.52 per cent, followed by HDFC falling 2.59 per cent. Vedanta, Tata Steel, Coal India, Yes Bank, Sun Pharma, Wipro, TCS, L&T, Infosys, IndusInd Bank, and Kotak Bank too showed strength, gaining up to 2.44 per cent.
Shares of oil marketing companies such as HPCL, BPCL and IOC were down up to 4.20 per cent as global crude oil prices again rose on reports of a decline in crude export from Iran.
Sectorally, the BSE consumer durables index emerged worst performer by falling 3.91 per cent, followed by auto at 2.62 per cent, oil and gas 1.92 per cent, FMCG 1.68 per cent, PSU 1.19 per cent, realty 1.06 per cent, power 0.62 per cent, bankex 0.47 per cent, infrastructure 0.41 per cent, capital goods 0.25 per cent.
However, metal, healthcare, tec, and IT indices managed to close in the positive zone by rising up to 1.01 per cent.
Elsewhere in rest of Asia, Japan's Nikkei fell 1.32 per cent, Straight Time shed 0.49 per cent, while Shanghai rose 0.17 per cent. In the euro zone, FTSE, CAC, and DAX were little changed in their late morning deals.
