Sensex logs 9th straight loss, slumps 372 points

Mumbai: Continuing their losing spell for a ninth session in a row on Monday, the BSE Sensex crashed over 372 points and the NSE Nifty dived nearly 130 points on sustained sell-off across the board.

The index widened its loss towards the fag-end on emergence of intense selling in heavyweights like ITC, RIL and ICICI Bank.

In percentage terms, however, Sun Pharma was the biggest loser with 9.39 per cent drop. Intra-day, the pharma major's shares tanked over 20 per cent.

Other top Sensex laggards were Yes Bank, Tata Steel and Indusind Bank -- falling as much as 5.58 per cent.

After trading range-bound for most part of the day, the 30-share BSE benchmark saw steep plunge in the last hour and closed 372.17 points, or 0.99 per cent, lower at 37,090.82. The index hit an intra-day low of 36,999.84 and a high of 37,583.57.

Similarly, the broader NSE Nifty sank 130.70 points or 1.16 per cent to settle at 11,148.20 points. During the day, the NSE gauge hit a low of 11,125.60 and a high of 11,300.20.

Shares of ITC too dropped 2.64 per cent. The company, meanwhile, announced elevation of its MD Sanjiv Puri as the Chairman and Managing Director. It also reported an 18.72 per cent rise in net profit at Rs 3,481.9 crore.

Among the gainers on the Sensex, HDFC topped the chart, rising 1.06 per cent, after the mortgage lender posted a 26.8 per cent rise in its standalone net profit at Rs 2,862 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 2019.

HUL, Infosys, Bajaj Finance, Coal India and Hero MotoCorp rose up to 0.87 per cent.

Domestic investors kept weighing weak cues from global markets amid uncertainties around US-China trade tariff deal. Also, sustained foreign fund outflows kept investors edgy.

Bourses in China, Japan and Korea ended in the red tracking news related to US-China trade talks.

The United States has recently announced hike in duty on import of Chinese products worth more than USD 200 billion.

European stocks were also trading lower in early trade Monday.

Sunil Sharma, Chief Investment Officer, Sanctum Wealth Management, said, "Apart from global concerns, Indian markets are also worried about the liquidity crunch on the ground affecting both, investments and consumption in the country."

Meanwhile, the Indian rupee depreciated by 42 paise to 70.34 against the US dollar intra-day.

Global oil benchmark Brent crude was trading 1.78 per cent higher at USD 71.88 per barrel.