The uncertainty over the gravity of the pandemic's impact on the global economy and financial markets worldwide triggered a flight to safety among foreign investors as they rushed to exit from relatively riskier investment destinations, such as emerging markets like India, a report said.
Sectorally, bankex suffered the most by dropping 2.62 per cent, followed by finance 2.44 per cent and realty 1.63 per cent. On the other hand, telecom was among the top sectoral gainers, rising 4.60 per cent. IT index rose 2.62 per cent.
Bucking the overall downtrend, shares of RIL rallied nearly 10 per cent, capping the Sensex loss to a large extent.
The White House has said the forthcoming book by John Bolton is "full of classified information"
In an interview with Peerzada Abrar and Romita Majumdar, Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins said that his company would continue to bet heavily on India's engineering talent pool.
The broader NSE Nifty, after slipping below the 10,500-mark to hit a low of 10,477, finally concluded 29 points, or 0.27 per cent, down at 10,524.
China and the United States were headed for a major diplomatic confrontation as Washington on Wednesday ordered the closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston, a move it said was aimed 'to protect American intellectual property and private information', hinting at cyber espionage.
The NSE Nifty closed lower by 44.55 points, or 0.39 per cent, at 11,234.35. Intra-day, it shuttled between 11,332.05 and 11,210.90.
In the Sensex pack, Vedanta rallied 3.20 per cent, followed by Tata Steel, M&M, Tata Motors, ONGC, Hindustan Unilever, Maruti, Hero MotoCorp, HDFC, Bajaj Finance, SBI, HDFC Bank, HCL Tech, Coal India, Sun Pharma, Infosys, Reliance and Bharti Airtel, rising up to 2.69 per cent.
Among the Sensex losers, Yes Bank tumbled 5.46 per cent, followed by Bajaj Finance 5.40, ICICI Bank 3.82 per cent, IndusInd Bank 3.10 per cent and HeromotoCorp 2.55 per cent.
At $2.6 trillion, the Indian economy is currently ranked sixth in the world behind the US, China, Japan, Germany and the UK.
Gold, which was hovering around $1,321 an ounce in January 2019, has already breached $1,600 per ounce in the past few sessions to a seven-year high.
The deficit increased to $ 57.2 billion or 2.1 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2018-19 as against 1.8 per cent in the previous year.
'Why did government not include a provision in the bills which categorically stated that no crop will be sold below the MSP in the open market?'
Top losers include Hero MotoCorp, HDFC, SBI, Infosys, HCL Tech, ICICI Bank, Bajaj Finance, ONGC, Bajaj Auto and IndusInd Bank, falling up to 2.63 per cent.
The armed forces have been pushing for adequate allocation of funds so that they are well prepared to deal with the possibility of a "two-front" war on both northern and western borders.
Foreign brokerage Bank of America Merrill Lynch said they expect the headline inflation to rise to 3.3 per cent in May, but added that it is within the 2-6 per cent range which the government has set for the RBI.
On the volume side, the number of M&A and PE deals was 110 in July, 15 per cent lower from 130 in July 2018.
Both the Asian giants were among the top three countries spending more on armaments, according to a new report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
China, which considers the estranged island of Taiwan as part of its mainland, vociferously objects to any high-level foreign dignitaries meeting Taiwanese leaders.
Some international markets offer interest rates as low as one per cent, which could reduce the government's interest cost significantly.
Other than ITC, other laggards include PowerGrid, Infosys, M&M, NTPC, SBI, HDFC, Kotak Bank, HDFC Bank, TCS, Hero MotoCorp, Coal India, ONGC, RIL, Asian Paint, IndusInd Bank, ICICI Bank, Maruti Suzuki, Bajaj Auto, Tata Motors, Bharti Airtel and Axis Bank.
Against the backdrop of the standoff between Indian and Chinese troops in eastern Ladakh, the White House press secy said the United States was closely monitoring the current situation and supports its peaceful resolution.
Visiting Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping has asked United States to honour its commitment of 'One-China' policy on Taiwan and oppose Tibetan independence.
The Sensex is on course to ending calendar year (CY) 2019 at a price-earnings (P/E) multiple of 29x, the highest in 25 years. Current valuations are, however, lower than those seen in the early 1990s. The Sensex has risen close to 14 per cent in the last 12 months, while the index underlying EPS dropped 6.7 per cent during the period.
'She's not going to keel over.' 'This is the kind of difficult situation that she thrives in.'
The global high comes amidst the uncertainties of Brexit, a trade war and slowing growth, with traders increasing their silver bets.
Covering-up of short positions by speculators ahead of September month expiry in the derivatives segment on Thursday also helped the market stage a smart rally.
Will Covid-19 permanently change higher education, asks Ajit Balakrishnan.
'The hardliners in Delhi are in for a big disappointment,' predicts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Xi ordered the military to think about worst-case scenarios, scale up training and battle preparedness, promptly and effectively deal with all sorts of complex situations and resolutely safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests, state-run Xinhua news agency reported, without mentioning any specific issues that posed a threat to the country.
Underlining that years of economic stagnation have given way to a "roaring geyser of opportunity", Trump said, "I knew that if we unleashed the potential of our people, cut taxes, slashed regulation, fixed broken trade deals and fully tapped American energy that prosperity would come thundering back ... and that is exactly what happened."
Sentiments took a hit after broader Asian markets weakened, following a renewed sell-off on Wall Street on Tuesday as energy shares dropped after crude oil prices plunged to a 13-month low amid weak earnings and US-China trade disputes, fuelling worries about economic growth
The broader NSE Nifty too reclaimed the key 11,500-mark. It touched a high of 11,562.25, before finally settling at 11,536.90, showing a gain of 59.95 points, or 0.52 per cent.
Imports too declined by 16.31 per cent to $37.39 billion.
The fall was led by banking stocks, with IndusInd Bank, Kotak Bank, Federal Bank, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and SBI declining up to 2.36 per cent.
The wider NSE Nifty too fell by 61.40 points or 0.57 per cent to end at 10,618.25.
Among sectoral indices, telecom led the chart, spurting 3.08 per cent, followed by oil and gas.
Losers include ONGC, Bajaj Finance, Reliance, SBI, Hero MotoCorp, ICICI Bank, L&T, Vedanta, Yes Bank and Axis Bank, falling up to 2.54 per cent. On the other hand, Tata Steel, PowerGrid, HCL Tech, Kotak Bank and Maruti were the top gainers on Sensex, rising up to 2.31 per cent.
Weakness in the rupee against the US dollar also weighed on domestic stocks. The local unit fell 11 paise to 70.60 against the US dollar intra-day.
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