The Indian stock market benchmarks, the Sensex and the Nifty 50, suffered significant losses on Monday, 12 October. The Sensex crashed 548 points, or nearly 0.76%, to end at 71,924.68, while the NSE counterpart Nifty 50 dropped 0.70% to settle at 22,363.35. However, the mid and small-cap segments exhibited resilience, as the Nifty Midcap 150 index ended flat, while the Nifty Smallcap 250 jumped 1.13%.
The decline in the equity benchmarks can be largely attributed to the following three factors:
Banking and IT have the most weight in the Sensex and the Nifty 50. So, a selloff in banking and IT stocks dragged the benchmarks lower. The Nifty Bank index declined 0.61%, while the Nifty IT index dropped 0.79% during the session.
However, the losses were not confined to only banking and technology stocks. Most heavyweight stocks witnessed strong profit-booking amid weak global cues and elevated oil prices.
Bharti Airtel, ITC, L&T, Reliance, and SBI were the top drags on the Sensex.