IT failure, profit booking before Budget knock off Rs 8 lakh crore from equities market.

Mumbai: Snapping a four-day winning rally, India’s equity market benchmarks – BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty50 – took a beating on Friday due to a global sell-off, triggered by operating system issues that caused devices to crash worldwide. Premium valuation concerns and investors deciding to book profit ahead of the Union Budget due on Tuesday next week also dampened sentiments.

At close, the Sensex was down 0.91% at 80,604 and the Nifty was down 1.09% at 24,530. The selling was so widespread that only 858 shares registered on the BSE gained while 3,071 shares declined and 81 were unchanged. The broader markets logged a decline for the second straight day as midcap and smallcap indices fell 2.3 and 2.2%, respectively.

In total, investors lost almost Rs 8 lakh crore on Friday as the market capitalization of BSE-listed firms fell to Rs 446.38 lakh crore on Friday against Rs 454.32 lakh crore in Thursday’s session.