Stock markets fall for 3rd day on foreign fund outflows; Sensex drops nearly 314 points

Stock markets closed lower for the third consecutive session on Tuesday with the benchmark Sensex sliding nearly 314 points due to selling in IT and auto shares as foreign fund outflows dampened investor sentiment.

In a volatile trade, the 30-share BSE Sensex dropped 313.70 points or 0.37 per cent to settle at 84,587.01 with 24 of its constituents closing lower and six with gains. During the day, it fell by 363.98 points or 0.42 per cent to 84,536.73.

The 50-share NSE Nifty declined 74.70 points or 0.29 per cent to 25,884.80. Nifty has dropped 307 points or over 1 per cent in three sessions since Friday to slip below the 26,000 level while Sensex has shed 1,045 points or 1.2 per cent during the period.

Among Sensex stocks, Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles, Trent, Infosys, Power Grid, HDFC Bank, HCL Tech, Kotak Mahindra Bank, ICICI Bank and Bajaj Finance were the major laggards.

However, Bharat Electronics, State Bank of India, Tata Steel, Eternal, Bharti Airtel and Reliance Industries were the gainers.

Foreign institutional investors offloaded equities worth Rs 4,171.75 crore on Monday, according to exchange data. Domestic Institutional Investors, however, bought stocks worth Rs 4,512.87 crore in the previous trade.

Broader markets were positive with the BSE small-cap gauge rising by 0.20 per cent and midcap index by 0.19 per cent.

Among sectoral indices, IT dropped 0.75 per cent, BSE Focused IT (0.64 per cent), consumer durables (0.53 per cent), teck (0.39 per cent), energy (0.32 per cent), auto (0.25 per cent) and utilities (0.25 per cent).

Realty, commodities, health care, telecommunication, capital goods and metal were the gainers.

In Asian markets, South Korea's Kospi, Japan's Nikkei 225 index, Shanghai's SSE Composite index and Hong Kong's Hang Seng index settled in positive territory.