The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 indexes nosedived in last hour of trade dragged down by weakness in heavyweights like HDFC, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, ITC and Kotak Mahindra Bank. The Sensex fell as much as 656 points and Nifty touched an intraday low of 11,111.45. The benchmarks opened higher and were trading in a narrow range, However, weakness in banking shares dragged the benchmarks sharply lower in afternoon trading. Weakness in HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank wiped out over 200 points from the Sensex
As of 3:00 pm, the Sensex was down 453 points at 37,857 and Nifty slumped 125 points to 11,175.
Nine of 11 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading lower led by the Nifty Bank index’s nearly 3 per cent decline.
