Mumbai : Dalal Street’s benchmark indices remained under heavy pressure on Thursday, with sustained selling dragging markets deeper into the red through the afternoon session. At around 3:22 pm, the Sensex was down 1,414 points at 82,320, while the Nifty50 had slipped 416 points to 25,404. Heavyweights such as Reliance Industries, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Larsen & Toubro remained under pressure, putting significant weight on the indices.
Even defensives like Hindustan Unilever and ITC saw declines, adding to the broad weakness. When large companies fall together, benchmark indices tend to drop sharply because these stocks carry high weightage in index calculations. Only a few names, including Infosys and TCS earlier in the day, managed marginal gains, but the support was not strong enough to alter market direction. After recent rallies, some investors are choosing to lock in gains. Profit booking simply means selling shares at higher levels to secure returns.
Global cues are also adding pressure. Investors worldwide remain cautious amid geopolitical tensions and uncertainty around global growth and interest rate directions.When uncertainty rises, investors often reduce exposure to equities and shift funds into safer assets such as gold or government bonds. This risk-off behaviour tends to hurt emerging markets, including India.
However, markets are sensitive to uncertainty. If heavyweight sectors continue to slide and global sentiment stays weak, volatility is likely to persist in the near term. For investors, the key is to avoid panic decisions. Sharp intraday swings are common when sentiment turns fragile.
