India shares lower at close of trade; Nifty 50 down 3.76%

India equities were lower at the close on Friday, as losses in the Banking, Oil & Gas and Carbon sectors propelled shares lower.

At the close in NSE, the Nifty 50 fell 3.76%, while the BSE Sensex 30 index fell 3.80%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the Nifty 50 were Nestle India Ltd (NS:NEST), which fell 0.08% or 12.30 points to trade at 16101.60 at the close. SBI Life Insurance Company Ltd (NS:SBIL) fell 0.63% or 5.50 points to end at 866.90 and NTPC Ltd (NS:NTPC) was down 0.65% or 0.70 points to 107.30 in late trade.

Biggest losers included Oil And Natural Gas Corporation Ltd (NS:ONGC), which lost 6.76% or 8.05 points to trade at 111.00 in late trade. JSW Steel Ltd (NS:JSTL) declined 6.24% or 26.30 points to end at 395.45 and Hero MotoCorp Ltd (NS:HROM) shed 6.13% or 210.40 points to 3224.00.

The top performers on the BSE Sensex 30 were Nestle India Ltd (BO:NEST) which fell 0.10% to 16097.70, NTPC Ltd (BO:NTPC) which was down 0.69% to settle at 107.20 and Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. (BO:MRTI) which lost 0.79% to close at 6872.65.

The worst performers were Oil And Natural Gas Corporation Ltd (BO:ONGC) which was down 6.60% to 111.15 in late trade, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. (BO:MAHM) which lost 6.35% to settle at 804.85 and AXIS Bank Ltd. (BO:AXBK) which was down 5.98% to 724.70 at the close.

Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 1153 to 499 and 64 ended unchanged; on the Bombay Stock Exchange, 1775 fell and 1032 advanced, while 174 ended unchanged on the India National Stock Exchange.

The India VIX, which measures the implied volatility of Nifty 50 options, was up 22.93% to 28.1425 a new 6-month high.

In commodities trading, Gold Futures for April delivery was down 0.57% or 10.20 to $1765.20 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in April fell 0.57% or 0.36 to hit $63.17 a barrel, while the May Brent oil contract fell 0.61% or 0.40 to trade at $65.71 a barrel.

USD/INR was up 1.32% to 73.697, while EUR/INR rose 0.91% to 89.3675.

The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.47% at 90.560.