Sensex Falls Over 300 Points, Nifty Ends Below 15,000 Dragged By Metals

Nine of 11 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange ended lower led by the Nifty Metal index's over 3 per cent fall.

The Indian equity benchmarks declined for second straight session on Thursday dragged down by profit-booking in recent outperforming banking and metal shares. For most part of the day, the benchmarks traded in a narrow band. However, owing to volatility in the last hour of trade ahead of weekly expiry of index futures and option contracts, the benchmarks broke down of the rangebound trading. The S&P BSE Sensex fell as much as 406 points and Nifty 50 index dropped below its important psychological level of 15,000. The Sensex ended 338 points or 0.68 per cent lower at 49,565 and Nifty 50 index dropped 124 points or 0.83 per cent to close at 14,906. HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Reliance Industries, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Axis Bank were among the top drags on the Sensex. Nine of 11 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange ended lower led by the Nifty Metal index's over 3 per cent fall. Metal shares came under selling pressure after the world's largest producer of metals, China, said on Wednesday it would strengthen its management of commodity supply and demand to curb "unreasonable" increases in prices.