Equity benchmark indices close in red; Sensex tanks 1,170 pts, Nifty slips below 17,500

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], November 22 : Stock markets witnessed a bloodbath since the opening on Monday, with the benchmark index continuing the downside move throughout the day and crashing by almost 2 per cent at the closing bell.
At the closing bell, the BSE S&P Sensex was down by 1170.12 points or 1.96 per cent at 58465.89, while the Nifty 50 dropped by 348.30 points or 1.96 per cent at 17416.50.
In BSE Sensex, the sectors which plummeted the most were the energy sector with a decline of 3.99 per cent, consumer durables with 3.22 per cent, the auto sector with 3.07 per cent, and oil and gas with 3.00 per cent.
The only sectors that gained were Telecom by 2.92 per cent and metal by 0.07 per cent.
Among stocks, the top gainer was Bharti Airtel which surged 3.90 per cent to Rs 742.05 per share, followed by Asian Paints up by 1.14 per cent to Rs 3,263 per share, and Power Grid Corp up by 0.99 per cent to Rs 194.25 per share.
Meanwhile, Bajaj Finance cracked by 5.74 per cent, followed by Bajaj Finserv down by 4.69 per cent, Reliance down by 4.42 per cent and NTPC down by 3.73 per cent.