Indian benchmark indices closed deep in the red on Friday as investors remained jittery ahead of an important US jobs report that can determine the speed and size of US Fed rate cut in coming days. At close, the Sensex was down 1,017 points or 1.24 per cent at 81,183 while Nifty was down 292 points or 1.17 per cent at 24,852.
The market capitalization of all listed firms on the BSE went down by almost Rs 5.3 lakh crore to Rs 460.04 lakh crore as a result of the sharp fall. On Thursday, it was Rs 465.3 lakh crore.
SBI, ICICI Bank, NTPC, HCL Tech, Reliance, Tata Motors, ITC, Axis Bank, Infosys, L&T, M&M, Maruti Suzuki, Ultratech Cement (NS) and Wipro (NS) were the top losers.
Bajaj Finance (NS), Asian Paints (NS), JSW Steel (NS) and HUL were the biggest contributors. Selling was visible across all sectors.
Auto, PSU banks, fin service, media, energy, private banks, infra, realty and FMCG indices were the top laggards.
The Nifty midcap 100 index was down 946 points or 1.59 per cent at 58,501 and Nifty smallcap 100 index was down 244 points or 1.25 per cent at 19,276.
Santosh Meena, Head of Research at Swastika Investmart (BO) said, "Indian markets today witnessed surprise decline after consolidation at all-time highs. One key factor may be weaker job data from US feeding worries over a possible global economic slowdown."
"Besides, India's weight in the MSCI Emerging Markets index has gained more than that of China and reached an all-time high. This increases the risk of a strategic weight cut, especially considering the relatively rich valuations seen in India," Meena said.
The Foreign Institutional Investors turned net sellers on September 5 by selling equities worth Rs 688 crore, while domestic institutional investors purchased equities worth Rs 2,970 crore on the same day.
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