Indian equities decline widens; Sensex plunges over 1,400 points

New Delhi, Jan 24 The 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex) and broader 50-scrip Nifty on National Stock Exchange fell further as the session progressed on Monday due to continued sell-off by foreign institutional investors amid fear of policy tightening by the US Fed, analysts said.

This is the fifth consecutive decline in sessions for the indices.

At 1.50 a.m., Sensex traded at 57,576 points, down 2.5 per cent or 1,460 points, whereas Nifty at 17,172 points was down 2.5 per cent or 445 points.

Top losers were Bajaj Finance, JSW Steel, Tech Mahindra, Tata Steel, and Wipro, NSE data showed.

Besides, some other Asian markets too fell on the back of fears of policy tightening by the US Fed and ongoing Russia-Ukraine's geo-strategic conflict, analysts said.

"We are seeing a meaningful correction in the market and the intensity of selling is very high on the back of heavy FIIs' selling. There is risk-off sentiment across the globe amid fear of tightening by the US Fed," said Parth Nyati, Founder at Tradingo.

"We are underperforming today and the main reason is global weakness while another reason is some margin calls got triggered especially in new edge companies and that is causing a ripple effect."

Amid the sharp downtrend in Indian equities, pharma company Cipla's shares were the top gainers, rallying 1.7 per cent at around 1.57 p.m.

"Asian markets were typically worse on a worldwide basis as investors awaited the Federal Reserve's monetary policy meeting in the United States this week. The majority of the BSE sectoral indices were under pressure closer to home. Stocks in the real estate, consumer durables, and metals sectors suffered the most losses throughout the day," said Gaurav Garg, Head of Research at CapitalVia Global Research.