Nifty sheds 256 pts, ends below 10,800-mark on Budget woes

NSE benchmark Nifty slumped 256 points to 10,760.60 today as the long-term capital gains tax on equity investments imposed in the Budged dampened sentiment.
The index witnessed strong selling in realty, auto, media, energy, infra, metal and banking sectors. The Nifty small and midcap index slumped 6.06 per cent and 4.34 per cent, respectively.
Overseas, European shares were trading lower as investors digested earnings reports. Asian shares came under pressure after Wall Street closed mixed and yields on US government debt rose in the last session.
The Nifty 50 index fell 256.30 points or 2.33 per cent to end at 10,760.60, its lowest closing level since January 16, 2018. It hovered in a range of 10,954.95 and 10,736.10.

The benchmark had seen a fall of 239.35 points or 3.32 per cent on February 11, 2016.
On the sectoral front, Realty dropped 6.17 per cent, followed by Media 3.53 per cent, Energy 3.43 per cent, Infra 3.29 per cent, Auto 3.35 per cent, Private Bank 3.03 per cent, Metal 3.02 per cent, Finance Service 3.07 per cent, PSU Bank 2.90 per cent, Bank 2.83 per cent and Pharma 1.27 per cent.

IT was the lone gainer by 0.15 per cent.
Index gainers were Tech Mahindra, HCL Tech, TCS, HUL and ITC
Losers were Bajaj Finance, Bajaj Auto, Ultratech Cement, Axis Bank, HPCL, Bharti Airtel and Reliance.

The market breadth, indicating its overall health, was in favour of the losers. On the NSE, 135 stocks advanced, 1,716 declined and 31 remained unchanged.
Total securities that hit their price bands were 399.
Turnover in the cash segment rose to Rs 47,472.98 crore from Rs 41,637.97 crore as on Thursday.
A total of 22,355.48 lakh shares changed hands in 15,763,261 trades. The market capitalisation of listed firms on NSE stood at Rs 1,46,81,932.78 crore.