Bears Charge: Nifty Cracks Under 18,000, Sensex Down 600 Pts, VIX Zooms

By Malvika Gurung

Investing.com -- The domestic market made a negative opening on Friday, tracking an overnight dive on Wall Street, along with marred cues from Asian peers as investors fretted that a higher-than-expected US GDP indicated a resilient economy, raising the prospects of the Fed to lead with hiking rates for a longer period, along with rising Covid cases.

At the time of writing, benchmark indices Nifty50 declined 0.84% to 17,975.35, cracking under the 18,000 mark and hitting the day’s low at 17,965.65 during early trade, while Sensex slashes 576.43 points or 0.95%.

Pharmaceutical stocks were the only gainers in the morning session, with Divi's Laboratories (NS: DIVI ) surging 3.3%, while Cipla (NS: CIPL ), Sun Pharma (NS: SUN ) and Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories (NS: REDY ) rose up to 2%. 

Heavyweight stocks of Tata and Adani Groups, Tata Motors (NS: TAMO ) and Adani Ports (NS: APSE ) tanked up to 4%, pulling the market lower.

Barring Nifty Pharma and Nifty Healthcare , all sectoral indices under the Nifty umbrella traded deep in red, led by Nifty PSU Bank , tumbling 2.2%, while Nifty Metal and Nifty Auto followed suit. Nifty Bank tanked 1.1%.

Tata Motors was the worst-performing stock on Sensex as well as Nifty. Besides three constituents including Reliance Industries (NS: RELI ), all the stocks on the 30-scrip Sensex fell at the time of writing.

The market volatility barometer India VIX zoomed 5.2% to 15.98, jumping 6.5% to 16.17 during the session.