Nifty settles below 9,450, Sensex falls 200 pts, technology stocks gained

The key benchmark indices, the Sensex and the Nifty, ended the session on a negative note, driven by weak global cues.  The sentiment was further affected by a fall in rupee, which was trading at six-week low of Rs 64.89 per USD.

On the closing hours, the Sensex was down 223.98 points at 30,434.79, while the Nifty closed lower by 96.30 points at 9,429.45. The market breadth was negative with 711 advancing shares against 2,037 a declining shares, and there were 164 shares unchanged.

Shares of Wipro Ltd, Infosys Ltd, TCS,  and Sun pharma were the major gainers while Mahindra and Mahindra, Tata Motors, Bajaj Auto, and Axis Bank were the laggards.

Shares of IT companies were trading higher with the Nifty IT index gaining 1 percent on weak rupee. TCS rallied 5 percent, its highest level since March 15, 2017 but subsequently ended 3.4 percent higher. Reliance Industries dropped 1.87 percent to Rs 1,327.05, hitting stock high and low of Rs 1,352 and Rs 1,323.30, respectively in intraday trade.

Liquor company’s stocks such as United Breweries Ltd, brewer of Kingfisher beer, dropped 3.25 percent after announcing an 87% fall in profit for the March-quarter.