Equity Indices Fall Sharply Due to COVID-19; Sensex Closes at 811 Points, Nifty Settles at 230 Points

New Delhi: The rising coronavirus cases in the country is taking toll on the stock market as the equity benchmark BSE Sensex plunged 811 points in fag-end selloff on Tuesday. The effect was clearly seen as the pandemic-led recession fears kept investors jittery.

Sensex at 30,579.09, down by 810.98 points. pic.twitter.com/6d5PcbbOzW

— ANI (@ANI) March 17, 2020

In the morning, the trade opened on a positive note but the 30-share index gyrated 1,653 points during the day. And finally, it settled 810.98 points or 2.58 per cent lower at 30,579.09.

Reviewing the whole day trade, the NSE Nifty slumped 230.35 points or 2.50 per cent to close at 8,967.05. However, the top losers in the Sensex pack included ICICI Bank, IndusInd Bank, Bajaj Finance, Kotak Bank, HDFC, Infosys and SBI.

And on the other hand, the top gainers of the day were HUL, Hero MotoCorp, PowerGrid, Maruti and Asian Paints.

As per updates, the value-buying took the benchmarks up during the first half of the session, but the gains could not continue as markets succumbed to coronavirus-led fears.

Apart from India, the stock market in Shanghai and Seoul ended in the red, while in Hong Kong and Tokyo, it turned relatively green.

However, markets in Europe went up to 3 per cent in early trade. Meanwhile, the rupee appreciated marginally to 74.20 per US dollar (intra-day).