Sensex falls over 350 points, Nifty ends below 21,800 dragged by Reliance, Bharti Airtel

The Sensex and Nifty declined on Monday dragged down by losses in Reliance Industries, Bharti Airtel, Bajaj Finance, Larsen & Toubro and Maruti Suzuki amid weak cues from global markets after hopes of interest rate cut by US Fed receded after strong US Labour Market data. The Sensex fell as much as 483 points and Nifty 50 index touched an intraday low of 21,726.

The Sensex ended 354 points lower to close at 71,731 and Nifty 50 index declined 82 points to settle at 21,772.

Fading hopes of early rate cuts in the US, on the back of strong labour market data and weakness in China's market, dragged Asian equities down.

Back home, nine of 15 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange ended lower led by Nifty Consumer Durable index's 1.2 per cent fall. Nifty Bank, Nifty Financial Services, FMCG, IT, PSU Bank and Private Bank indices also fell between 0.2-0.8 per cent.

Mid- and small-cap shares ended mixed as Nifty Midcap 100 index fell 0.14 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index rose 0.26 per cent.

Among the individual shares, Paytm lost Rs 20,750 crore in market value over three consecutive days, following a regulatory crackdown by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

The RBI instructed Paytm Payments Bank to halt new deposits in its accounts and digital wallets from March due to long-standing non-compliance with central bank regulations.

UPL was top Nifty loser, the stock dropped 11 per cent to close at Rs 475 after the fertiliser maker reported net loss of Rs 1,217 crore in December quarter against net profit of Rs 1,087 crore in the same period last year.

Bajaj Finance, Bharti Airtel, HDFC Life, Grasim, Maruti Suzuki, Bajaj Finserv, Ultratech Cement and HCL Technologies also fell between 1.8-3.2 per cent.

On the flipside, Tata Motors rose as much as 8.1 per cent to hit record high of Rs 950 after it reported net profit more than doubled to Rs 7,025 crore in December quarter.

Coal India, Bharat Petroleum, Sun Pharma, Cipla, ONGC, Mahindra & Mahindra and Power Grid were also among the gainers.

The overall market breadth was negative as 2,133 shares ended lower while 1,820 closed higher on the BSE.