Indian benchmark indices witnessed severe across-the-board selling on Thursday, October 08, 2026. The BSE Sensex tumbled 1,045.46 points or 1.44% to settle at 71,593.24, while the NSE Nifty 50 plunged 371.25 points or 1.64% to close at 22,231.80. Widespread risk-off sentiment and unrelenting institutional selling dragged the benchmarks to multi-week lows.
Sectorally, high-beta counters bore the brunt of the carnage. Nifty Bank, Auto, and IT registered steep cuts between 1.8% and 2.4%, with heavyweights like HDFC Bank, Reliance Industries, Infosys, and Tata Motors leading the downside. On the flip side, select defensive pockets in Pharma and FMCG managed modest resilience, though overall market breadth remained overwhelmingly in favor of decliners.
Macroeconomic headwinds further compounded market distress. Elevating Brent crude prices above critical thresholds fueled domestic inflation concerns, adding pressure to the Indian Rupee against the US Dollar. Heavy net outflows from Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) comfortably outweighed supportive Domestic Institutional Investor (DII) inflows, while sluggish Asian cues and overnight losses on Wall Street left bulls with little room to stage a recovery.