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Indian equity markets continued languishing in red in afternoon session on Friday, on the back of sustained selling at several front line counters. The Sensex dropped 758 points, while Nifty was down by 243 points. Sentiments were fragile as Russian troops were shelling Europe's largest nuclear power plant, in Ukraine, raising worries over radiation risks. Elsewhere, Russian forces gained ground in their bid to cut off the country from the sea, as Ukrainian leaders called on citizens to rise up and wage guerrilla war against the invaders. On the sectoral front, auto stocks were under pressure as the ongoing geopolitical tussle between Russia and Ukraine is likely to impact semiconductor chip availably. Palladium and neon are two resources that are key to the production of semiconductor chips where Russia supplies over 40 per cent of the world’s supply of palladium and Ukraine produces 70 per cent of the global supply of neon.

Pessimistic global-set is also adding to the downslide of the domestic markets. Most of the Asian stocks were trading lower as investors remain on edge over Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Back home, with almost no place to hide, stocks from Information Technology counters mainly acting as a ray of hope, while rest all the sectoral indices on BSE are out in red. The overall market breadth on BSE is in favour of declines, which are outnumbering advances in the ratio of 2160:1040; while 127 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 54344.00, down by 758.68 points or 1.38% after trading in a range of 53887.72 and 54653.59. There were 8 stocks advancing against 22 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index lost 1.99%, while Small cap index was down by 1.23%.

The only gaining sectoral indices on the BSE was IT up by 0.20%, while Consumer Discretionary down by 2.75%, Auto down by 2.71%, Consumer Durables down by 2.61%, Realty down by 2.28% and Telecom was down by 2.27% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Dr. Reddy's Lab up by 1.79%, ITC up by 1.66%, Tech Mahindra up by 1.38%, Sun Pharma up by 0.83% and Wipro was up by 0.68%. On the flip side, Asian Paints down by 5.29%, Hindustan Unilever down by 4.91%, Maruti Suzuki down by 4.81%, Axis Bank down by 3.52% and Bajaj Finance was down by 3.15% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA) has said that domestic passenger vehicle (PV) retail sales declined 8 per cent in February 2022 as the companies continued to suffer production loss due to chip shortage. The PV sales dropped to 2,38,096 units in February, down 7.84 per cent from 2,58,337 units in February 2021.

FADA has indicted that two-wheeler sales in February 2022 declined 10.67 per cent to 9,83,358 units, compared with 11,00,754 units in February 2021. Tractor sales stood at 50,304 units last month, down 18.87 per cent from 62,004 units in February 2021. Commercial vehicle sales, however, witnessed a growth of 7.41 per cent last month at 63,797 units, as against 59,395 units in the year-ago month. The total sales across categories last month declined by 9.21 per cent to 13,74,516 units from 15,13,894 units in February 2021.

The industry body stated that even though the PV segment saw some launches and slight respite in supply due to better production, it was not enough to meet customer demand. Vehicle waiting period thus remains similar to what it was in the past few months. It warned that the Russia-Ukraine conflict could further impact the production of semiconductors. It noted that Russia is one of the largest producers of rare-earth metals, especially Palladium, which is an essential metal for semiconductors. Ukraine, on the other hand, is one of the biggest producer and exporter of neon gas, which is used in the manufacturing of semiconductors.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 16254.25, down by 243.80 points or 1.48% after trading in a range of 16133.80 and 16364.85. There were 10 stocks advancing against 40 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Dr. Reddy's Lab up by 1.70%, Tech Mahindra up by 1.51%, ITC up by 1.34%, Sun Pharma up by 0.81% and UPL was up by 0.63%. On the flip side, Asian Paints down by 5.73%, Maruti Suzuki down by 4.87%, Hindustan Unilever down by 4.82%, Axis Bank down by 3.44% and Hero MotoCorp was down by 3.24% were the top losers.

Most of the Asian markets were lower; Taiwan Weighted dropped 197.88 points or 1.1% to 17,736.52, Shanghai Composite declined 29.44 points or 0.85% to 3,451.67, KOSPI fell 30.73 points or 1.12% to 2,716.35, Nikkei 225 slipped 591.80 points or 2.23% to 25,985.47, Straits Times trembled 2.51 points or 0.08% to 3,251.14 and Hang Seng was down by 548.35 points or 2.44% to 21,918.99. On the other hand, Jakarta Composite was up by 37.04 points or 0.54% to 6,905.44.

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