All Except IT Index Drowns, 2.17 Lakh Crore Wiped Out Of Market Cap

Indian shares fell and benchmark 10-year bond yields rose to three-week highs on Wednesday, as a forecast for the country's first drought in six years and a cautious statement on inflation from the central bank soured sentiment. The S&P BSE Sensex and CNX Nifty ended 1.29-1.23% lower each.

Key benchmark continued its steep downfall and closed lower as weak monsoon forecast raised fears of a drought while delay in further rate cuts and slow pace of recovery in the economy dampened sentiment.

In the broader market, BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices underperformed the larger peers and lost 1.2% and 1.8% each.

From economic news, the India's services activities dropped for the first time in the span of thirteen month on lack of demand which weighed on the bourses.

India Meteorological Department (IMD) downgraded its earlier April estimate from 93% to 88% long period average (LPA) inciting concern of weak agricultural output that could further push up the inflation.

In the currency space, the Indian rupee traded at 63.93 against the UD dollar after hitting an intra-day low of 64 tracking weakness in local equities.

The Sensex plunged 351 points to close at 26,837 and the Nifty dropped 101 points to end at 8,135.

The market breadth stood in favour of declines. Of the 2808 stocks traded on the BSE, 603 (21.47%) rose, 2127 (75.75%) fell and 78 (2.78%) stocks remained unchanged.

Among the sectoral indices BSE IT (up 0.16 percen) was the only sector that manged to close in green. Realty, FMCG, Power were among top losers as their respective indices shed 5.54, 3.45, and 2.22 percent.