NIFTY50 falls for a sixth straight session, SENSEX plunges 493 points on rising crude prices

The Indian equity benchmarks ended sharply lower on Tuesday, August 18, as surging crude prices in international markets dented investor sentiment.

The NIFTY50 index dropped for a sixth straight session while SENSEX dropped nearly 500 points dragged down by heavyweights like Bharti Airtel, HDFC Bank, Infosys, ICICI Bank, State Bank of India, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Kotak Mahindra Bank.

The SENSEX ended 493 points lower at 77,235 and NIFTY50 index dropped 133 points to close at day's lowest level of 24,155.

Back home, 10 of 15 major sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange (NSE) ended lower led by the NIFTY IT index's nearly 2% fall. NIFTY Realty, PSU Bank, Financial Services, Bank, FMCG, Metal, and Consumer Durables indices also fell between 0.4% and 1.4%.

On the other hand, select auto, pharma, media, healthcare and oil & gas shares witnessed buying interest.

Broader markets ended mixed as NIFTY Midcap 100 index dropped 0.43% and NIFTY Smallcap 100 index ended unchanged.

Shares of electronics manufacturing services (EMS) companies such as Jyoti CNC Automation, Syrma SGS Technology, and Centum Electronics among others ended higher after the government cleared 31 fresh proposals under the electronics components manufacturing scheme (ECMS), entailing investments of ₹7,877 crore, S Krishnan, the secretary in the IT ministry, said on Monday.

Netweb Technologies India surged by as much as 3.5% to hit an intraday and all-time high of ₹5,396.40 as the company opened its qualified institutional placement (QIP) issue to raise ₹1,200 crore.

The company, in an exchange filing, said that its fundraising committee, at its meeting held on Monday, approved opening the QIP issue on August 17, 2026. It also set the floor price at ₹4,885.90 per share.

Shares of Indo-MIM surged 10% after the company reported a 31.6% year-on-year (YoY) growth in net profit after tax (PAT) to ₹240 crore in the April to June quarter results, in comparison to ₹182 crore in the same period a year earlier.

Tata Motors PV was top loser in the NIFTY50 index, the stock fell 2.24% to close at ₹323. Asian Paints, Infosys, Wipro, HCL Technologies, Bharti Airtel, Jio Financial Services, Ultratech Cement and TCS also fell between 1.4% and 2.2%.

On the flip side, Axis Bank, Max Healthcare, Mahindra & Mahindra, Grasim, Power Grid, Reliance Industries, Bajaj Finance and ONGC were top gainers in the NIFTY50 index.

The overall market breadth was negative as 1,924 shares ended lower while 1,558 closed higher on the NSE.