Sensex crashes 950 Points, Nifty hovers around 21,786 in early trade; HDFC Bank slides 5%

Stock markets opened sharply lower on Wednesday, with the Sensex down 1% at 72,373 and the Nifty down 0.92% at 21,829.

The decline was led by a slump in banking stocks following HDFC Bank's Q3 results. HDFC Bank, down nearly 6%, has a 14% Nifty 50 weightage, dragging the index down by almost 170 points.

Among the Sensex firms, HDFC Bank fell nearly 6 per cent after its December quarter earnings.

HDFC Bank on Tuesday reported a 2.65 per cent rise in consolidated net profit of Rs 17,258 crore for the October-December period against Rs 16,811 crore in the preceding September quarter.

Axis Bank, Tata Steel, Kotak Mahindra Bank, ICICI Bank, Tata Motors, and Bajaj Finance were among the other major laggards.

Tata Consultancy Services, Reliance Industries, UltraTech Cement, Infosys, HCL Technologies, and Tech Mahindra were among the gainers.

In Asian markets, Seoul, Shanghai and Hong Kong were trading lower while Tokyo quoted in the green.

The US markets ended in the negative territory on Tuesday.