Terror in the markets as well.


Markets continued to trade sharply lower in late noon trades amid a sharp sell-off in Chinese shares even as the Finance Minister allayed fears about the Special Investigative Team's stringent norms on participatory notes (P-notes).


Further, muted earnings from large corporates, reforms uncertainty amid political logjam, expiry of July derivative contracts, the outcome of the US Fed meet on July 28-29 also weighed on investor sentiment.

At 2:45PM, the 30-share Sensex was down 505 points at 27,608 and the 50-share Nifty was down 147 points at 8,375.
 
The broader markets also witnessed profit taking with the BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices down nearly 1% each.

Market breadth was weak with 1,610 losers and 1,061 gainers on the BSE.

The Supreme Court-appointed special investigative team (SIT) had, last week, recommended stricter norms for participatory notes (P-notes) to check the flow of unaccounted money. The markets seem to have viewed this development in a negative light.

Meanwhile, the Indian rupee was trading lower at 64.12 against the US dollar compared to the previous close of 64.03 amid fears of capital outflows in the weak of weakness in domestic equities.
 

Axis Bank, Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Tata Motors are the other major losers.