Sensex Drops 400 Pts, Nifty Nears 19,500; Eicher Down 4%

Equity benchmark indices started Tuesday’s trade with losses, tracking weakness in Asian markets and continued strength in the dollar and US bond yields.

The BSE Sensex fell 326 points to 65,502, and the NSE Nifty50 slipped 100 points to 19,531.

All Sensex stocks sat deep in red, except M&M, Asian Paints, Ultratech and HUL. Among losers, Maruti, RIL, Kotak Bank, JSW Steel, bharti Airtel and Power Grid lost 0.8-1 per cent.

The BSE MidCap index was down 0.3 per cent, but the SmallCap index held gains of 0.17 per cent.

The market sell-off was wide across all sectors. Auto and Metal indices on NSE dropped most.

Among stocks, Eicher Motors slipped 4 per cent as its Sept sales came 4 per cent lower on a monthly basis.