Sensex snaps 6-day winning streak, drops 335 points; Nifty ends below 11,600

MUMBAI: Benchmark equity index Sensex tumbled nearly a per cent on Tuesday, pulled down by a slump in index heavyweight Infosys after a whistleblower complaint sent the stock tumbling on the bourses.

Infosys shares nosedived 16.7 per cent after a letter by anonymous employees surfaced, accusing Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Salil Parekh and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Nilanjan Roy of unethical practices for several quarters.

The stock alone contributed more than 450 points of decline in Sensex.

Markets at a glance:
BSE flagship Sensex closed 0.85 per cent or 335 points lower at 38,964, while its NSE counterpart 50-share Nifty shed 0.62 per cent or 72 points to close at 11,590.

Half of the Sensex stocks ended in the red. While Infosys pulled down the index, gains in banking stocks capped losses.

Private lender ICICI Bank advanced 3.06 per cent, while peer HDFC Bank rose 0.77 per cent.

Kotak Mahindra Bank advanced 0.78 per cent after its September quarter net profit jumped 51 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 1,724 crore. Axis Bank closed 0.49 per cent higher ahead of its quarterly earnings announcement.

The market breadth was neutral, as losers and gainers were nearly equal on the BSE.

Analysts’ view:
“Nifty has to decisively break 11,700. It shows that multiple times, it is facing resistance there. The more number of times it retracts from there, the higher is the probability of it going down. Typically, retracement is as per Fibonacci numbers from the level the rally started 38%, 50%, etc…It started at 11, 100. So around 200 points.”
Ajay Bodke, CEO-PMS at Prabhudas Lilldher

“The risk taking ability is gradually improving and Investors are shifting focus from defensive to growth oriented ideas owing to the recent developments in global macros and expectation of domestic earnings revival in H2FY20. Slide in IT sector may have an impact over IT sector but overall trend of the market will be maintained healthy, led by marginally better results in Q2 till date.”
Vinod Nair, head of research, Geojit Financial Services

Global markets:
European shares fell on Tuesday as investors sifted through a mixed bag of corporate earnings and eyed latest developments on US-China trade talks and Britain’s progress towards some form of orderly departure from the European Union, Reuters reported.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index, which opened slightly positive, was down 0.3% by 0810 GMT, with France’s CAC 40 .FCHI lagging the most among major country indices.

In Asia, MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan added a modest 0.4%, with a holiday in Tokyo keeping turnover light.