The BSE Sensex fell over 100 points, while the broader Nifty declined as much as 28 points to 7,302 on Thursday. Markets were hit by a sharp selloff in Infosys shares, which slumped over 7 per cent on news that that the company's president BG Srinivas has quit.
Infosys, which has the second largest weightage (7.06 per cent) on the Nifty, was the top loser on the 50-share bluechip benchmark. Brokerages were quick to downgrade the stock citing increased uncertainty at the top level. Market analyst Sanjeev Bhasin put out a sell call on Infosys with a target of Rs 3,000.
Mr Srinivas, the 10th high-ranking official to quit Infosys in the last one year, was seen by some investors as a candidate to take over as CEO.
Market sentiment was also pressured by continued profit taking by overseas investors, who sold cash shares worth Rs 287 crore on Wednesday.
Markets are expected to remain volatile today as the expiry of the May series of derivative contract are due. Till yesterday the market wide rollover was 56 per cent, which is in line with average market rollover historically.
Among sectoral indices, CNX IT was the biggest underperformer, down 2.2 per cent, mainly driven by Infosys. Other IT stocks were trading in a narrow range. The Bank Nifty and the auto index were trading with modest gains.
As of 9.40 a.m, UltraTech Cement was the biggest gainer on Nifty, trading with 3.43 per cent gains at Rs 2,457.15 followed by mobile carrier Bharti Airtel and utility vehicle maker Mahindra & Mahindra.
32 stocks traded higher on the Nifty, while 18 stocks declined.
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