Nifty cracks below 8,600-mark, falls 103 points

The benchmark Nifty extended its losses for the second-day today, witnessing biggest single day fall in nearly seven-weeks on across the board profit-booking by slumping 102.95 points to finish below the crucial 8,600-level.
After a brief initial recovery spell, investors went into selling mode amid recent shares upsurge as well as mute global cues.
Also some Pessimism overlapped the sentiment following government reports that the gross non-performing assets (GNPAs) of the public sector banks increased Rs 2.16 lakh crore in 2013-14 to Rs 4.76 lakh crore in 2015-16. It said the top 100 borrowers of public sector banks owe nearly Rs 14 lakh crore to them.

Banking shares including PSUs and pvt financials bore the brunt followed by extensive profit-booking across the spectrum led by energy and pharma counters.
Counterswise selling was led by energy (2.11 pct), pharma (2.01 pct), auto (1.93 pct), commodities (1.83 pct), PSU banks (1.65 pct), banks (1.51 pct), pvt banks (1.47 pct), realty (1.47 pct), financials (1.23 pct), FMCG (0.84 pct), infra (0.83 pct), metal 90.63 pct) and media (0.58 pct).
The broader Smallcap and Midcap indices also dropped 1.43 and 1.69 per cent, respectively.

The 50-share Nifty opened slightly higher at 8,686.70 and hovered between 8,690.10 and 8,564.60 before ending at 8,575.30, showing a loss of 102.95 points, or 1.19 per cent.

Stockwise, Grasim fell by 6.61 pct, Idea 4.32 pct, Acc 3.98 pct, Lupin 3.91 pct, Ambuja Cement 3.72 pct, HDFC 2.62 pct, Reliance 2.62 pct, ICICI bank 2.45 pct, M&M 2.13 pct and SBI 1.55 pct.
Elsewhere, Asian and European stocks witnessed a mixed trend as investors assess the timing of the next interest rate hike by the US Federal Reserve as well as the outlook for oil prices.
Turnover in cash segment dropped to Rs 20,846.40 crore from Rs 22,298.89 crore yesterday.
A total of 10,552.07 lakh shares changed hands in 81,48,329 trades. The market capitalisation of NSE stood at Rs 106,13,108 crore.