Financial stocks push markets into red

Mumbai: Indian equities fell for the ninth session in a row on Monday as investors fretted about health of non-banking finance sector, US-China trade tensions and uncertainty over poll outcome.

In their longest losing streak in years, the BSE Sensex crashed over 372 points and the NSE Nifty dived nearly 130 points on sustained sell-off across the board.

After trading range-bound for most part of the day, the 30-share BSE benchmark saw steep plunge in the last hour and closed 372.17 points, or 0.99 per cent, lower at 37,090.82.

Similarly, the broader NSE Nifty sank 130.70 points or 1.16 per cent to settle at 11,148.20 points.

The BSE index widened its loss towards the fag-end on emergence of intense selling in financial stocks as fresh concerns over liquidity crunch returned.

Sectorally, BSE healthcare, capital goods, power, oil and gas, metal, auto, energy and banking indices fell up to 3.53 per cent. On the other hand, only BSE IT index ended marginally higher.

Broader BSE midcap and smallcap indices settled up to 2.15 per cent lower.

Indian stock markets fell in line with mostly weaker Asian equities as trade talks between the US and China wrapped up on Friday without an agreement.

Besides, sustained foreign fund outflows also made investors jittery.

Bourses in China, Japan and Korea ended in the red tracking news related to US-China trade talks.

European stocks were also trading lower in early trade Monday.