Mumbai, Oct 4: Indian equity market closed in the deep red on Friday following conflict in the Middle East.

Indian investors have lost over Rs 14 lakh crore in the last two trading sessions as all listed companies' market cap on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) skewed to Rs 461 lakh crore which was earlier Rs 475 lakh crore.

At closing, Sensex was down 808 points or 0.98 per cent at 81,688 and Nifty was down 235 points or 0.93 per cent at 25,014.

M&M, Bajaj Finance, Nestle, Asian Paints, Bharti Airtel, UltraTech Cement, ITC, HUL, Power Grid, HDFC Bank, Reliance, Bajaj Finserv, ICICI Bank and NTPC were the top losers. Infosys, Tech Mahindra, Wipro, Tata Motors, Axis Bank, TCS and SBI were the top gainers.

Selling was also seen in the midcap and smallcap stocks. The Nifty Midcap index closed at 58,747, down 550 points or 0.93 per cent, and the Nifty Smallcap 100 index settled at 18,758, down 193 points or 1.02 per cent.

Among the sectoral indices, Auto, Fin service, pharma, FMCG, metal, realty, energy and services were the major laggards. Only IT and PSU bank indices closed in the red.

India VIX, which is an indicator of market volatility, closed at 14.12, up 7.21 per cent.

According to the market experts, "The bearish sentiment continued as investors are monitoring the escalating conflict in the Middle East and have adopted a sell-on recovery strategy. Crude prices have moved up sharply but may be restricted due to an increase in production from OPEC plus."

"The drag was across sectors led by realty, auto, and FMCG except IT stocks, which gained due to expected benefits from US rate cuts and defensive nature. The pessimism on the market is expected to continue in the near term amidst rising crude prices and fund flows to cheaper markets like China," they added.

The foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold equities worth Rs 15,243 crore on October 3, while domestic institutional investors bought equities worth Rs 12,914 crore on the same day.

--IANS

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