Indian shares ended lower on Tuesday, dragged by banking and automotive stocks, as investors remained cautious in the absence of an announcement about a government fiscal stimulus package to curb slowdown and rollback of FPI surcharge, ahead of key inflation data.

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The Sensex ended 624 points down at 36,958 while the broader Nifty50 index lost 184 points to end the day at 10,926. In broader markets, the Nifty Midcap fell 2.2 percent and Nifty Smallcap index tanked 1.6 percent.

The fall in domestic markets was in line with declines in broader Asia, as fears about a drawn-out Sino-US trade war, protests in Hong Kong and a crash in Argentina’s peso currency drove investors to safe harbours. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan skidded one percent. Chinese stocks fell one percent, while Hong Kong’s main market index tumbled 1.7 percent to a seven-month low.

Indiabulls Housing, Reliance Industries, GAIL, Sun Pharma, and Zee were top gainers on the Nifty50 while YES Bank, Bajaj Finance, M&M, Bajaj Finserv, and Eicher Motors led the losses.

All sectoral indices ended lower for the day. The Nifty Auto index fell the most, down 4 percent, followed by banking indices. Nifty Bank, Nifty PSU Bank and Nifty Private Bank declined around 2.5 percent each. Nifty IT lost 2.5 percent and Nifty Fin Services slipped 3 percent for the day.

Indiabulls Housing Finance surged 14 percent after it received a public apology from law firm Managium Juris LLP for filing a petition against the housing finance company with false and sensational allegations related to the merger with Lakshmi Vilas Bank.

Meanwhile, Reliance Industries rose nearly 10 percent, its biggest gain in over a decade, after it also announced a $15 billion sale of a 20 percent stake in its oil-to-chemicals arm to Saudi Aramco and plans to become a zero net debt company in 18 months.

Telecom stocks slipped after Reliance Industries unveiled plans to launch high-speed internet services and free high definition TV with annual data subscription plans under its telecom arm Jio, which has upended India’s telecom sector.

Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea slipped 5 percent and 6.5 percent, respectively.

Cinema chains Inox Leisure and PVR were also under pressure after Reliance Industries proposed a plan of bringing 'first-day first show' movies on its Fibre powered set-top box.

The Nifty Auto index fell 4 percent as domestic passenger vehicle sales fell for the ninth straight month in July amid an industry-wide slowdown in demand.

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