The Indian stock market witnessed steep fall on Monday as both the Sensex and Nifty faced intense selling pressure for second straight session on Monday.
The selloff led to wiping off around Rs 7 lakh crore from the total market capitalisation of all companies listed on BSE, dragging it down to Rs 415 lakh crore. In the morning trade, at 11:00 AM, Sensex was down 1,106.50 points or 1.51% at 72,476.72, while Nifty was down 325 points or 1.42% at 22,493.55. Nearly 867 shares advanced, 2,871 shares declined, and 160 shares were unchanged. In March, both the indices have lost nearly 10.5% each, putting them on track for their worst month since the COVID led rout in March 2020. Record monthly foreign outflows worth $12.3 billion was also registered for the month. In the financial year 2025-26 (FY26), Sensex has slipped 4.9 per cent, while the Nifty 50 is down 2.97 per cent. Earlier in FY20, amid Covid crisis, Sensex tanked 23.8 per cent. The bank Nifty fell over 2% after the Reserve Bank of India tightened noose on banks' net open forex positions. The RBI aimed to curb volatility in the weakening rupee. At the time of filing this report, rupee was up 34 paise at 94.47 against the US dollar. It opened 1 rupee and 25 paise higher at 93.56 a dollar. The Indian stock market also reacted to the rising prices of the crude oil as the brent crude rose 3% to $115.98 a barrel, bringing its gains for the month to 60%. In terms of top losers of Sensex, Axis Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, State Bank of India (SBI), Bajaj Finserv, Bajaj Finance and HDFC Bank shares led the rally falling between 2-4%. Further, Bharat Electronics, Reliance Industries and NTPC were the only gainers on the index. India VIX surged more than 7% as most of the most of the sectors were in red. India VIX measures volatility in the markets.
