Sensex down 500 pts, IT, Pharma stocks drag, Metals, PSBs firm

The BSE Sensex fell 530 points at 59,568. It touched an intra-day low of 59,478 before. The NSE Nifty was at 17,794, lower by 143 points.

In the broader markets, the BSE MidCap index was now trading in red too, while the SmallCap index trimmed its gains but remained 0.12 per cent up.

Top laggards continued to be IT majors Infosys and HCL Tech, down 2 per cent now. Bajaj Finserv, meanwhile, was the top loser ahead of its Q3 earnings, and was 2.3 per cent lower. Similarly, HUL, HDFC, RIL and Dr Reddy's were also trading nearly 2 per cent down, having extended their losses.

Sectorally, only metals and realty were in the green , while Nifty IT and pharma indices were trading over 1 per cent lower. From the latter, Lupin, Divis Labs, Gland Pharma, Cipla, Laurus Labs, Biocon and Sun Pharma were down 1-2 per cent.

That apart, in the primary market, the IPO of AGS Transact Technologies was subscribed 1.18 times so far, with the retail investor and NII portions being subscribed 1.66 and 1,03 times. The QIB quota, meanwhile, was subscribed 0.47 times.

Among stocks, shares of Mastek tumbled 15 per cent to Rs 2,750 on the BSE after the IT company reported muted earnings for the October-December quarter. Its revenue grew 3.7 per cent in constant currency (CC) sequentially. In rupee terms, revenue was up 3.4 per cent, while dollar revenue grew by 2.2 per cent.