Sensex falls by 383 points, Nifty closes at 10,948 as bank stocks underperform

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], Aug 29 (ANI): Benchmark indices extended early losses and lurched lower at the closing bell on Thursday as a gloomy outlook for the domestic economy and US-China trade war kept investors away from riskier equities.
The government has announced a string of measures to boost the economy and relaxed rules for foreign direct investment in digital media, coal mining and retail. But these macroeconomic policy moves have failed to uplift market sentiment.
The BSE S&P Sensex closed 373 points or 1 per cent lower at 37,069 while the Nifty 50 edged lower by 98 points to 10,948.
At the National Stock Exchange, most sectoral indices were in the red with Nifty PSU bank down by 2.5 per cent, financial services by 1.8 per cent, private bank by 1.5 per cent and auto by 0.4 per cent.
Among stocks, private lender Yes Bank dropped by 3.3 per cent to close at Rs 57.50 per share after Moody's Investors Service downgraded its long-term foreign-currency issuer rating to Ba3 from Ba1.
Kotak Mahindra and Axis Bank slipped by 2.2 per cent each while ICICI Bank edged lower by 1.6 per cent. Government-owned State Bank of India suffered a 3.3 per cent fall and closed at Rs 275.50 per share.
The other prominent losers were HDFC, ITC, Reliance Industries, Mahindra & Mahindra and Tata Motors.
However, Sun Pharma, Bharti Infratel, JSW Steel, Vedanta and Coal India were in the positive zone with gains ranging between 2.5 and 5 per cent.
CG Power and Industrial Solutions gained by 4.74 per cent to close at Rs 9.95 per share after its board of directors resolved to remove Gautam Thapar as the chairman with immediate effect.
Meanwhile, Asian shares edged lower as global recession worries from intensifying US-China frictions and signals of a no-deal Brexit drove investors to safer harbours.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.38 per cent. South Korea's KOSPI index lowered by 0.4 per cent, Chinese shares dipped by 0.1 per cent while Japan's Nikkei shed 0.09 per cent. (ANI)