Mumbai, Apr 13 (IANS): The Indian equity market tumbled on Monday in anticipation that the nationwide lockdown will be extended.

The Nifty50 on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) settled just below the psychological mark of 9,000 and the BSE Sensex also fell 469 points to lose hold of the 31,000 level.

Weakness in the global markets also reflected on the Indian indices, analysts said.

Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services, said: "In spite of the hope that infections are peaking out in Europe, Indian markets closed negative with virus infections seen to be increasing in some regions of India. The Indian markets are awaiting the decision of the government regarding the current lockdown."

"Government is expected to announce a plan for a staggered withdrawal from the lockdown. Any continuation of the lockdown in its current form will put further pressure on economic growth and corporate earnings and will have a negative impact on the markets," he added.

Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research at HDFC Securities, noted that the broad market indices like the BSE Midcap and Small Cap indices lost less, thereby outperforming the Sensex and Nifty.

Sectorally, the top gainers were the BSE Telecom, Capital Goods and Metal indices and the major losers were the BSE Realty, Consumer Durables, Auto and Banking indices.

On the technical front, Jasani said that a recovery from the lows helped to erase the losses to a certain extent.

"Technically, while the Nifty has corrected today, the underlying short term trend remains firmly up. The Nifty could now attempt to target the near term highs of 9,130 in the next 1-2 trading sessions," he said.

A convincing move above these levels could see the Nifty attempting to target the 9,403 resistance and 8,904 is a crucial support, he added.

On Monday, the Nifty50 settled at 8,993.85, lower by 118.05 points or 1.30 per cent from its previous close.

The BSE Sensex closed at 30,690.02, lower by 469.60 or 1.51 per cent from the previous close of 31,159.62.

It had opened at 31,195.72 and had touched an intra-day high of 31,195.72 and a low of 30,474.15 points.

On the Sensex, the top gainers were Larsen & Toubro (up 6.57 per cent), Bharti Airtel (4.64 per cent) and IndusInd Bank (3.76 per cent), while the major losers were Bajaj Finance (down 10.27 per cent), Mahindra & Mahindra (4.80 per cent) and Titan Company (4.73 per cent).