Nifty Pharma falls for 7th straight session

NEW DELHI: Extending its losing streak to seventh straight session, Nifty Pharma index settled 253 points, or 2.89 per cent lower at 8,513.

The index hit fresh all-time low of 8,391 during the afternoon session on Thursday.

In the index, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals (down 5.76 per cent), Dr. Reddy's Laboratories (down 5.04 per cent), Cadila Healthcare (down 3.28 per cent), Sun Pharmaceutical Industries (down 3.08 per cent), Cipla (down 2.67 per cent), Piramal Enterprises (down 2.33 per cent), Divi's Laboratories (down 1.42 per cent) and Lupin (down 0.93 per cent) ended today's session in red.

Shares of Aurobindo Pharma (up 1.81 per cent) and GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals (up 0.14 per cent) were the only two stocks in the index that settled in green.

Besides Nifty Pharma, auto and PSU bank indices also cracked over 2 per cent.

Nifty Realty cracked over 5 per cent to touch the intraday low of 250, with shares of DLF (down 6.40 per cent), Indiabulls Real Estate (down 5.77 per cent), Prestige Estates Projects (down 4.08 per cent) and Sobha (down 2.64 per cent) as the highest losers.

The index closed at 257, down 5.07 per cent on Thursday.

Nifty IT was the only index that was in green at the end, with shares of Tech Mahindra, Infosys, Wipro, HCL Technologies and Tata Consultancy Services gaining. The index closed at 10,662, up 0.46 per cent.

Benchmark Nifty50 index closed 88 points lower at 9,820, while the 30-share Sensex was 266 points down at 31,531 at the end of today's session.

In the Nifty50 pack, 19 stocks settled in green, while 32 in red.

On BSE, 363 stocks were advancing whereas 2,211 stocks were lagging when markets closed.