The rising coronavirus cases continue to scare and weaken the markets. Today, Sensex plummeted by over 1200 points and Nifty slipped below 14250 at the open. Both the benchmark indices opened negative and fell by over two and a half per cent each in early trade. 

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India becoming the second largest affected country now, after the United States has reported over 2.7 lakh covid cases in the last 24 hours and as many as 1619 deaths have been reported in various parts of the country due to the pandemic’s upsurge. 

The broader markets, especially small and mid-cap underperformed as compared to benchmark indices, both fell over three per cent in the early trade. Whereas, the biggest laggard for today so far has turned out to be Nifty Bank, it declined by over four and a half per cent at around 30500 levels. 

The banking and financial stocks dragged the market down, ICICI Bank, IndusInd Bank, Axis Bank, Kotak Bank, and Bajaj Finance become the top five laggards in the early trade. The first two fell by over five per cent, whereas the other three by four per cent each. 

The only index that survived the fall so far is Pharma Index, 10 out of seven scrips are advancing while three are declining. Even on the Nifty50 list the only stocks positive are Pharma with Cipla and Dr Reddy’s surging most of all by around one and a half per cent each. 

The investors' sentiments remain low amid strong global cues, especially from the US markets. S&P 500 continued to make record high for 12th straight sessions. Whereas Dow Jones over half a per cent up.  

(Authored by Vaibhav Bansode)