NIFTY below 22,150, SENSEX drops over 500 points: What is dragging down markets today?

Benchmark indices are under heavy selling pressure for the third consecutive trading sessions amid weak global clues and escalating geopolitical tensions.

As of 1:30 pm, NIFTY50 trades around 22,129, down 0.64%, while SENSEX trades around 72,830, declining more than 550 points. Sell-off in IT giants like Infosys (-3.05%) and TCS (-1.57%) and Banking heavy lifters like ICICI Bank (-1.14% ) and IndusInd Bank (-2.65%) dragged down the overall markets.

As per experts, weakness in the domestic market comes in response to dour global clues, especially in the US markets. Rising US bond yield and uncertainty regarding crude oil prices with escalation in tensions between Iran and Israel remained a key concern for investors.

Out of the NIFTY50 space, 34 stocks are trading in red. Infosys (-3.0%), LTI Mindtree (-2.8%), IndusInd Bank (-2.6%) are among top losers, while Eicher Motors (+2.7%), ONGC (+1.6%), Hindustan Unilever (+0.94%) are top gainers.

Most of the sectoral indices are trading lower, with NIFTY IT (-2.25%), NIFTY Bank (-0.58%) leading the losses. Meanwhile, broader market indices are outperforming benchmark indices, with NIFTY Midcap100 and Smallcap100 trading 0.2% and 0.9% higher respectively.

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