Another record single-day spike in fresh COVID cased spooked investors on Dalal Street with the benchmark indices ending nearly 2 percent on Monday. The Sensex ended 882 points lower at 47,949 while the Nifty lost 258 points to settle at 14,359. Banking, energy and auto stocks dragged the indices the most while pharma stocks were the only ones in green.

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Stricter restrictions by most states to curb the spread of the virus have fuelled fears of more economic pain. In the last 24 hours, India recorded 2,73,810 new 19 cases, taking the total infections over 1.5 crores since the start of the pandemic.

"Domestic markets nosedived as surging Covid cases and the imposition of restrictions continued to fan investor worries. Increasing restrictions are forcing investors to reconsider the current valuations. Further, the banking sector pressured the market due to rising concerns over asset quality. As the investors remain focused on the rising COVID-19 cases, the market will continue to ride on volatility. We can expect stability as daily cases fall in the coming weeks due to lockdown, completion of state elections and immunity with vaccination," said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.

Nation Capital New Delhi today announced a lockdown from midnight of April 19 till April 26 morning while the state of Maharashtra is already under a lockdown since April 15. Other states including Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu is also following the trend.

Broader markets underperformed benchmarks with the Midcap and Smallcap indices down over 2 percent each.

On the Nifty50 index, Dr Reddy's, Britannia, Cipla, Wipro and Infosys were the top gainers while Adani Ports, ONGC, Powergrid, Hero Moto and IndusInd Bank led the losses.

All sectors, barring Nifty Pharma, ended in the red for the day. Nifty Bank, Nifty Energy, Nifty Auto and Nifty Fin Services fell 2-3 percent while the metal and FMCG sectors lost over a percent each.

Shares of HDFC Bank lost over 1 percent after the firm's March quarter profit missed analysts' estimates. India's largest private lender reported a net profit of Rs 8,186.3 crore in Q4, up 18 percent on a YoY basis.

Shares of Macrotech Developers, earlier known as Lodha Developers, trimmed some losses to settle around 6.5 percent lower as against its issue price in its market debut.

Airline stocks declined after domestic air traffic dipped sharply amid rising COVID-19 cases and as states imposed stringent curbs to tackle the outbreak of the second wave of the pandemic. Shares of SpiceJet fell 6.6 percent while InterGlobe Aviation, the operator of IndiGo airlines, shed 3.7 percent.

(Edited by : Pranati Deva)

First Published:Apr 19, 2021 3:34 PM IST