SENSEX falls over 350 points, NIFTY50 below 25,850; Infosys, TCS among top drags

The Indian equity benchmarks fell sharply lower on Thursday, February 12, ahead of weekly expiry of SENSEX futures and option contracts.

The SENSEX fell as much as 395 points and NIFTY50 index touched an intraday low of 25,836 dragged down by losses in index heavyweights like Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Eternal, HCL Technologies, HDFC Bank, Mahindra & Mahindra and Tech Mahindra.

As of 9:29 am, the SENSEX was down 391 points at 83,843 and NIFTY50 index dropped 128 points to 25,828.

Asian stocks surged to a record high while the dollar firmed against most currencies except the yen after stronger-than-expected US jobs data dented near-term rate cut expectations, setting the stage for the inflation report on Friday, news agency Reuters reported.

Japan's Nikkei advanced 0.03%, China's Shanghai Composite rose 0.05%, South Korea's KOSPI surged 2.6% while Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 0.95%.

Overnight, The US markets ended mixed on Wednesday after the economy added 1,30,000 jobs in January. The better-than-expected reading on non-farm payrolls boosted the markets at the beginning of the session, but gains were short-lived, as the Dow Jones and the S&P 500 closed 0.1% lower, while the NASDAQ gained 0.3% on Wednesday.

Back home, IT shares came under intense selling pressure on Thursday, and the NIFTY IT index dropped as much as 4.5% following a sell-off in global tech and software stocks due to the fresh concern about the disruption AI start-ups will have on established companies.

Th e NIFTY IT index has slid over 10.5% year-to-date (YTD) and over 10% over the past 30 days (as of Thursday, February 12, early trade level).

NIFTY Media, Pharma, PSU Bank, Realty, Consumer Durables, Oil & Gas and Auto indices also dropped between 0.2%-1.2%.

On the flipside, select banking, financial services and FMCG shares were witnessing buying interest.

Broader markets were underperforming their larger peers as NIFTY Midcap 100 index dropped 0.77% and NIFTY Smallcap 100 index fell 0.85%.

Infosys was top loser in the NIFTY50 index, the stock dropped nearly 5% to ₹1,399. Tech Mahindra, TCS, HCL Technologies, Wipro, Eternal, HDFC Life and Apollo Hospitals also fell between 1%-4.5%.

On the flipside, ICICI Bank, Eicher Motors, Bharat Electronics, State Bank of India, ONGC, NTPC and Bajaj Finance were top gainers in the NIFTY50 index.

The overall market breadth was extremely negative as 1,903 shares were declining while 767 were advancing on the NSE.