The Nifty50, too, erased 510 points, or 2.9 per cent, to close at 17,026.
Existing inflation fears coupled with worries of an aggressive policy tightening by the US Fed Reserve also added to Friday’s catastrophic session.
Meanwhile, the Nifty Bank index fell 3.6 per cent and the Nifty Realty index slipped 6 per cent.
This trend may take some time to recover as the WHO meeting on the new mutant variant impact and hospitalization rates in US and Europe will be watched by the market very closely,” said Amit Gupta, Fund Manager – PMS, ICICI Securities.
In the broader markets, the BSE MidCap index is down over 2 per cent, in-line with benchmark, while the BSE SmallCap index is donw 1 per cent.
Covid variant update: According to news agency ANI, official sources have told the agency that no case of Covid-19 variant B.1.1.529 has been reported in India so far.
Recovery plays like hotels, aviation-related, and multiplex stocks are some of the worst hit sectors today as new Covid-19 variant dents prospects of economic recovery.
As benchmark indices declined nearly eight per cent from record high levels, Devang Mehta of Centrum Wealth and Varun Lohchab of HDFC Securities decode investment strategies to ride the on-going correction.
In the broader markets, the BSE MidCap index shed 2.7 per cent while the BSE SmallCap index declined 2 per cent.
Sectorally, the Nifty Pharma index is still up 1 per cent.
Only two stocks — Dr Reddy’s Labs and Sun Pharma — were trading higher on the Sensex.
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