Benchmark indices ended the day sharply lower, as worries over a US Fed interest rate hike, saw selling in major frontline stocks with the benchmark Sensex crashing below the 25,000 points mark.

Comments by St. Louis Fed President James Bullard supporting a rate hike, led to market worries that we may see a US Fed hike as early as April.

Bank of Baroda, and ICICI Bank were the biggest losers from the Bank Nifty space, losing as much as 4 per cent each. Axis Bank dropped more than 3 per cent, while Federal Bank and Canara Bank were the other big losers from the space.

IT stocks managed to stay a bit more resilient in trade with Infosys, TCS and Wipro ending the day almost flat.

Metal stocks were the hardest hit with Hindalco and Vedanta dropping 9 per cent each. Tata Steel and Sail also lost ground and fell 5 per cent each. Metal and banking stocks have had a superb rally through the month of March.

Shares in Sadhbhav Engineering gained after the company bagged two road projects from the National Highways Authority of India.

Meanwhile, markets across Asia ended mostly in the red, while Europe was closed for trading.

GoodReturns.in