JSW Steel, Tata Motors and Hindalco are among the top losers as fear of new COVID variant takes the wind out of Indian stocks

• India’s benchmark stock indices are set for the third straight weekly decline and the worst one in 9 months.
• The blue chip index, which tracks India’s market leaders, is down by over 5% in the last two weeks alone.
• This comes amid news of a new highly mutated COVID-19 variant.
• Here are the worst hit sectors in Nifty, top Nifty losers and top losers in Nifty midcap.

Panic gripped the Indian stock markets on Friday as concerns of a new, highly mutated COVID-19 variant and overall weakness in other Asian markets led to a market-wide decline.

This is likely to be the third straight weekly decline for the Nifty 50 and the Sensex, and the worst one in nearly nine months. Nifty is down 2.91% (as of 3:30 p.m) for the week over and a similar decline in the previous. The blue chip index has lost over 5% in the last two weeks alone.


Worst weeks for Nifty this year

Week ended	Decline
January 21	-5.13%
November 21	-3.14%
February 21	-3.02%
November 28	-2.98%
October 24	-2.45%

The benchmark Nifty 50 opened over 200 points lower on weak cues across the Asian markets. As of 3:30 p.m., crucial sectors like finance, metals, software, oil and gas were amongst the major drag-downs, pulling down the overall Nifty index by over 2%.

Nifty 50 biggest losers

Company	Last closing price	Current price	Change	% change
JSW Steel	680.9	628.65	-52.25	-7.67
Hindalco	447.04	417	-30.04	-6.72
Tata Motors	492.75	460.2	-32.55	-6.61
Indusind Bank	959.3	901.8	-57.5	-5.99
Adani Ports	762.45	717.15	-45.3	-5.94

Nifty Midcap 100 top losers

The Nifty Midcap 100 index, which measures the performance of the top 100 midcap companies listed on Nifty, was down by 3.25%.

Company	Last closing price	Current price	Change	% change
Indian Hotels	205.55	182.05	-23.5	-11.43
Shriram Transport Finance	1,570.95	1446.7	-124.25	-7.91
RBL Bank	200.5	185.85	-14.65	-7.31
Jindal Steel	381.55	354.4	-27.15	-7.12
Vodafone Idea	11.65	10.85	-0.8	-6.87

Nifty worst-hit sectors

The realty sector was amongst the top sectoral losers on the index.

Sector	% change
Nifty Realty	-6.26
Nifty Metal	-5.34
Nifty Auto	-4.34
Nifty PSU Bank	-4.21
Nifty PVT Bank	-3.85

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