Domestic equity markets saw a steep decline in the closing hour of the trade after trading rangebound all through Thursday, as investors waited on the sidelines or booked profits ahead of the outcome of the Bihar elections on Sunday and with the exit poll results likely to come out later in the day at the end of the final phase of polling.
Comments of US Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, who said in a testimony before the joint economic committee in Washington overnight that the Fed rate hike is now a ‘live possibility’, also weighed on investor sentiment.
The Sensex slipped 249 points to close at 26,300 while the Nifty ended 85 points lower to below 8,000. Vedanta and Tata Steel were the top losers on the Sensex, down 4 per cent each.
The selloff on the benchmark indices was led by banking, pharma and IT stocks. All major BSE sectoral indices ended with losses.
The European markets traded weak after comments from US Federal Reserve chief raised fears of a possible rate hike in December. Earlier in the day, most other Asian markets traded mixed.
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