SENSEX falls over 400 points, NIFTY50 settles below 24,000 dragged by banks

The Indian equity benchmarks came off intraday highs and ended sharply lower on Tuesday, April 28, as investor sentiment turned cautious tracking a spike in crude oil prices in international markets.

The SENSEX fell as much as 752 points from the day's highest level and NIFTY50 index touched an intraday low of 23,957 after hitting a high of 24,182 earlier in the session dragged down by losses in index heavyweights like ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank and State Bank of India.

The SENSEX ended 417 points lower at 76,887 and NIFT50 index declined 97 points to close at 23,996 as April futures and option contracts for the month of April expired.

In April F&O series, NIFTY50 rose 2.96% and NIFTY Bank index advanced 3.15%.

Investor sentiment took a knock after global crude oil benchmark Brent Crude futures rose as much as 3.25% to hit $111.50 per barrel. On the MCX, crude oil futures for delivery on May 18 advanced as much as 3.225 to hit ₹9,399 per barrel.

All 15 major sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange (NSE), barring the measure of oil & gas shares, ended lower led by the NIFTY PSU Bank index's over 2% fall. State-run lenders came under selling pressure following the latest updates on expected credit loss (ECL) norms.

On Monday, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) declined pleas for more time to transition to the expected credit loss (ECL)-based provisioning, making it clear that the newer system will be implemented from April 1 next year.

In the ‘Directions on Asset Classification, Provisioning, and Income Recognition for Commercial Banks’, the RBI said banks had given feedback seeking more time for the transition as they needed to build databases and models and upgrade systems.

Declining to accept the feedback on the draft first issued on October 7, 2025, the RBI said, “Banks have been provided a one-year timeline to prepare their internal systems for implementation of the new framework.”

NIFTY Bank, Financial Services, Auto, IT and Private Bank indices also fell between 0.5% and 1.5%.

Broader markets outperformed their larger peers as NIFTY Midcap 100 index's 0.3% and NIFTY Smallcap 100 index gained 0.42%.

Among the individual shares, City Union Bank rose as much 8.2% after it said that it earned a net profit of ₹360 crore, marking an increase of 25% from ₹288 crore in the same period last year.

Axis Bank was top loser in the NIFTY50 index, the stock fell 2.7% to close at ₹1,289. Maruti Suzuki, HCL Technologies, Shriram Finance, InterGlobe Aviation, ICICI Bank, Bajaj Auto, State Bank of India and Infosys also fell between 1.65% and 2.51%.

On the flip side, ONGC, Adani Enterprises, Coal India, Reliance Industries, Nestle India and Bharti Airtel were top gainers in the NIFTY50 index.

The overall market breadth was negative as negative as 1,784 shares ended lower while 1,490 closed higher on the NSE.