The benchmark indices crashed 2 per cent on Monday, as Covid cases crossed the one-lakh mark, sending shockwaves to people and investors.

At 1 pm, Sensex was at 49,005.37, down 1,024.46 points or 2.05 per cent. It hit an intraday high of 50,028.67 and an intraday low of 48,580.80.

Increasing Covid-19 cases with fresh restrictions in various parts of the country, especially Maharashtra, affected the market sentiment, said, analysts.

India recorded an all-time high of 1,03,558 coronavirus infections in a day, pushing the nationwide Covid-19 tally to 1,25,89,067, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Monday.

The Nifty 50, after slipping below the psychological mark of 14,500 and hitting an intraday low of 14,459.50, was at 14,583.50, down 283.85 or 1.91 per cent. It hit an intraday high of 14,849.85.

Index outlook: Be cautious of the key hurdles for Sensex, Nifty this week

While Banking and financial stocks led the decline, information technology stocks gained ahead of Q4 results.

HCL Tech, Britannia, TCS, Wipro and Infosys were among the gainers on the Nifty 50 while IndusInd Bank, Bajaj Finance, Bajaj Finserv, State Bank of India and Mahindra and Mahindra were losers.

The three-day meeting of RBI’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) begins today, and the outcome is expected to be on April 7. The meeting will be a major driving factor for the market this week.

IT remains resilient

Among the sectoral indices only Nifty IT has bucked the trend. In a volatile market Nifty IT managed to gain 1.03 per cent, as analysts are expecting a strong Q4 show from IT majors and a positive FY22 outlook.

Broader indices face pressure.

Meanwhile, banking and financial stocks recorded heavy losses. Nifty Bank was down 3.39 per cent while Nifty Financial Services was down 3.29 per cent.

Th Nifty PSU Bank recorded the highest losses and was down 4.04 per cent while Nifty Private Bank was down 3.39 per cent.

All broader indices slipped further with mid-cap stocks underperforming significantly.

Nifty Midcap 50 was down 2.62 per cent while the Nifty Smallcap 50 was down 1.60 per cent. The S&P BSE Midcap index was down 2.63 per cent while S&P BSE Smallcap was down 1.55 per cent.

The volatility index rose 11.79 per cent to 22.35.

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