Tracking a rout in the global markets, the benchmark indices tumbled for the second day on Monday. Investors were spooked by a possible spillover of China’s Evergrande’s debt woes, fall in commodity prices and outcome of the US Federal Reserve’s policy meet.  

Both the indices ended the volatile session near the day’s low. The BSE Sensex shed 525 points to end at 58,491, while the NSE Nifty closed the day at 17,397, down 188 points. Only six of the 30 Sensex stocks ended in the green, mainly from the FMCG and financial sectors. 

Sectorally, barring the Nifty FMCG index, all indices ended in the red. Nifty Metal tumbled the most, followed by Nifty PSU Bank, down 6.6 per cent and 4.18 per cent respectively. Nifty Realty, Nifty Bank and Nifty Pharma also tanked nearly 2 per cent each. 

The fall in broader markets was more pronounced, as the BSE Midcap index plunged 1.84 per cent and the BSE Smallcap 1.8 per cent.

Tata Steel, JSW Steel, Hindalco Industries, UPL and SBI were the worst hit on the Nifty50. HUL, ITC, Bajaj Finserv, HCL Technologies and Britannia Industries were among the top gainers.

Investors lost over Rs 3.49 lakh crore in Monday’s session, with the market capitalisation of all BSE-listed companies standing at Rs 255,47,063.52 crore at close of trade. 

“Indian markets finally seem to be taking a small pause, largely driven by nervousness in the global markets,” said Milind Muchhala, the executive director of Julius Baer. 

"Two key factors playing on the minds of global investors include the upcoming Fed meeting and the uncertainty building up in the Chinese real estate market due to stress on one of the major property players in the country,” he added. 

While the markets were keenly awaiting clarity on the Fed’s taper plans in terms of timelines and quantum, it might give an advance notice on tapering in this week’s meeting, followed by a formal announcement at the following meeting in November, Mr Muchhala said. 

S Ranganathan, the head of research of LKP Securities, said: “As global markets corrected fearing the contagion around the Chinese developer, risk aversion was seen across markets. Barring the FMCG pack, the market breadth was extremely weak with sectoral indices trading in the red.”