Sensex, Nifty Decline Dragged By Losses In Banking, Auto Shares

Eight of 11 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading lower led by the Nifty Realty index's 2.6 per cent decline.

The Indian equity benchmarks came off intraday lows but continue to trade with a negative bias owing to weakness in banking, auto, metal and real estate shares. The benchmarks staged a gap down opening on fears of foreign fund outflows after yield on 10-year US bonds spiked above 1.7 per cent mark. The Sensex fell as much as 630 points and Nifty 50 index briefly dropped below its important psychological level of 14,400. However, buying in FMCG heavyweights like ITC and Hindustan Unilever helped benchmarks stage recovery from lower levels. As of 12:26 pm, the Sensex was down 78 points at 49,138 and Nifty 50 index declined 24 points to 14,534. Eight of 11 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading lower led by the Nifty Realty index's 2.6 per cent decline. Nifty Bank, Auto, Media, Metal, PSU Bank and Private Bank indexes also fell over 1 per cent. On the other hand, FMCG, Pharma and IT indices were trading higher.