Banks, financials drag markets to the red

Equity benchmarks fell sharply from the morning highs to close in the red on Monday led by heavy selling in banking and financial stocks. While Nifty Bank fell 1.77%, IT stocks outperformed the markets as the Nifty IT index closed 4.5% higher.

The Sensex closed 97 points in the red after opening over 300 points higher. Similarly, the Nifty 50 index plunged to end 0.38% down at 11,421.

Bharti Airtel, Bajaj Finance, BPCL, Powergrid and SBI were the top five Nifty losers. Whereas HCL Tech, TCS, Wipro, Tech Mahindra and UPL were the top gainers.

The rupee also pared some of its early gains and settled 5 paise higher at 73.48 against the US dollar.