The stock market experienced a widespread selloff on Thursday on the expiry day of May futures and options (F&O) contracts falling nearly 1 per cent.

This was the fifth day of decline for the benchmarks when Nifty 50 was down nearly 1 per cent or 216 points at 22,488 while Sensex dropped 0.8 per cent or 617 points to 73,885.

Nearly nine sectors ended in the red. Nifty Metal and Nifty IT fell 3 and 2 per cent, respectively, emerging as the worst-hit sectoral indices.

Meanwhile, Nifty Bank rose 0.7 per cent. Healthcare as down 1.85 per cent, Pharma 1.81 per cent, Consumer Durables 1.67 per cent, FMCG 1.26 per cent, Oil & Gas 1.25 per cent and Auto down by 1.21 per cent.

On Nifty50, the top gainers were the ICICI Bank (1.45 per cent), Axis Bank (1.06 per cent) and SBI (0.76 per cent).

The shares of Tata Steel (5.19 per cent), Tech Mahindra (3.16 per cent) and Grasim (2.87 per cent) ended as the top losers.

BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices fell 1.21 per cent and 1.33 per cent, respectively. The overall market capitalisation of the firms listed on the BSE dropped to nearly Rs 410.4 lakh crore from nearly Rs 415.1 lakh crore in the previous session.

In May, the share of public sector companies in total stock market capitalization soared to a seven-year high of over 16 per cent. This was driven by a strong rally in state-owned companies, and a significant rise from the low of 7.8 per cent in October 2020, doubling since then, and stands in contrast to the peak of 29 per cent in February 2009.

Shares of Paytm hit 5 per cent upper circuit for the second straight session. In the afternoon, at 2:23 pm, Paytm shares were trading 5 per cent higher at Rs 377.40 on the National Stock Exchange (NSE).

Further, the shares of Indian Bank surged 3.4 per cent to hit an all-time high of Rs 582 per share after credit rating agency S&P Global Ratings reaffirmed their ‘BBB-‘ long-term and ‘A-3’ short-term issuer credit ratings and revised outlook to ‘positive’ from ‘stable.

On the global landscape, European stocks steadied as bonds regained some ground after a sell-off the day before on bets that global interest rates would stay higher for longer due to stickier inflation readings.

The dollar softened slightly as US Treasury yields slipped back.