Mumbai, April 25 -- Equity benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty declined sharply on Friday due to selling in Axis Bank and growing tensions along the Indo-Pak border following the terror attack at Pahalgam in Jammu & Kashmir.
Wiping out early gains, the 30-share BSE barometer tanked 588.90 points or 0.74 per cent to settle at 79,212.53. During the day, it dropped 1,195.62 points or 1.49 per cent to 78,605.81.
Falling for the second day, the NSE Nifty tumbled 207.35 points or 0.86 per cent to 24,039.35.
The market capitalisation of BSE-listed firms declined by Rs 8,88,975.14 crore to Rs 4,21,58,900.91 crore ($4.93 trillion) in two days.
Experts said worries over growing geopolitical tensions after Tuesday's Pahalgam terror attack weighed on market sentiment.
All sectoral indices except for IT index closed in the red while midcap and smallcap indices dropped more than 2 per cent due to profit taking.
Among Sensex shares, Adani Ports, Axis Bank, Eternal, Bajaj Finserv, Power Grid, Maruti, Bajaj Finance, Tata Motors, Tata Steel and NTPC were the biggest laggards.
Axis Bank declined over 3 per cent after the country's third largest private sector lender reported a sharp rise in loan loss provisions and a steep fall in the trading income for the last quarter of 2024-25.
The bank's profit declined marginally in the March quarter to Rs 7,117 crore, from Rs 7,130 crore in the year-ago period.
However, Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Tech Mahindra, UltraTech Cement, IndusInd Bank, Hindustan Unilever and ICICI Bank were the gainers.
The BSE smallcap gauge tanked 2.56 per cent and midcap dropped 2.44 per cent.
Among BSE sectoral indices, services dropped 3.11 per cent, utilities (2.96 per cent), realty (2.87 per cent), power (2.77 per cent), consumer discretionary (2.28 per cent), industrials (2.19 per cent) and capital goods (2.06 per cent).
IT and BSE Focused IT ended higher.
As many as 3,246 stocks declined while 719 advanced and 119 remained unchanged on the BSE.
The rupee pared its initial gains and settled for the day lower by 8 paise at 85.41 against the US dollar on Friday, amid heightened geopolitical tensions and a negative trend in the domestic markets.
In Asian markets, South Korea's Kospi index, Tokyo's Nikkei 225 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng settled in the positive territory. Shanghai SSE Composite ended marginally lower. Markets in Europe were trading higher.
US markets ended significantly higher on Thursday. Nasdaq Composite jumped 2.74 per cent, S&P 500 surged 2.03 per cent and Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 1.23 per cent.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.