The domestic equity benchmarks traded with steep losses in morning trade. The Nifty tanked below the crucial 24,000 level. Oil & gas shares declined after advancing in the previous trading session.

At 10:30 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex slumped 1,102.87 points or 1.38% to 78,627.24. The Nifty 50 index dropped 360.70 points or 1.48% to 23,943.65.

In the broader market, the S&P BSE Mid-Cap index declined 1.30% and the S&P BSE Small-Cap index fell 1.89%.

The market breadth was weak. On the BSE, 1,056 shares rose and 2,714 shares fell. A total of 156 shares were unchanged.

Result Today:

Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) (down 2.62%), Bata India (down 0.92%), Exide Industries (down 2.14%), Hatsun Agro Product (up 3.58%), KEC International (down 2.62%) and Raymond (down 1.95%) will announce their results later today.

New Listing:

Shares of Afcons Infrastructure were currently trading at Rs 450.25 at 10:15 IST on the BSE, representing a discount of 2.75% as compared with the issue price of Rs 463.

The scrip was listed at Rs 430.05, exhibiting a discount of 7.11% to the issue price.

So far, the stock has hit a high of 453.75 and a low of 419.85. On the BSE, over 10.95 lakh shares of the company were traded in the counter so far.

Buzzing Index:

The Nifty Oil & Gas index slipped 2.90% to 11,110.85. The index rose 0.84% in the past trading session.

Indian Oil Corporation (down 4.50%), Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (down 3.24%), Bharat Petroleum Corporation (down 3.04%), Mahanagar Gas (down 2.79%), Reliance Industries (down 2.54%), Oil & Natural Gas Corpn (down 2.15%), Gujarat Gas (down 2.13%), Oil India (down 1.98%), GAIL (India) (down 1.66%) and Castrol India (down 1.64%) declined.

Stocks in Spotlight:

Bajaj Auto dropped 4.15%. The auto major reported 2% rise in total auto sales to 4,79,707 units in October 2024 as against 4,71,188 units in October 2023.

Zen Technologies slipped 1.91%. The company reported standalone net profit of Rs 17.34 crore in Q2 FY25, zoomed 276.18% to Rs 65.23 crore posted in Q2 FY24.Revenue from operations spiked 277.44% year on year (YoY) to Rs 241.68 crore in the quarter ended September 2024.

Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone declined 2.74%. The company said that it had handled 37.9 MMT of total cargo in October 2024, which is higher by 2.43% as compared with 37 MMT of cargo handled in October 2023.