While the benchmark Nifty50 gained 4.5% in 2018 so far in a narrow rally driven by a handful of stocks, many sectoral indices have given negative returns. Some indices are in such a bad position that each constituent has yielded negative return this year.

Six of the eleven sectoral indices compiled by NSE suffered losses in 2018, with Nifty Realty shedding as much as 37.7%, followed by Nifty Media and Nifty PSU Bank, down 28.3% and 24.4% respectively.

In fact, all the constituents of these three sectoral indices – Nifty Realty, Nifty Media and Nifty PSU Bank – have given negative returns so far in 2018.

Market participants pointed out that concerns of rising interest rates and liquidity crunch seen in the financial systems last week have prompted investors to reduce exposure in these sectors.

According to Siddhartha Rastogi, director of Ambit Asset Management, the largest public sectors banks (PSBs) which have the maximum weightage in the PSU index have had significant write-offs in this financial year.

Moreover, the recent consolidation of PSBs also affected investor sentiment, Rastogi said, adding, “The merger of the PSBs with smaller ones necessitates the bad loans of the smaller banks to get absorbed by the high-quality banks.”

Among the state-owned lenders, shares of Punjab National Bank (PNB) lost the most with a fall of 63.1% followed by Syndicate Bank’s shares with a 60.5% fall. While Bank of India and Union Bank of India plunged more than halves Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC) and Central Bank of India declined 46.6% and 43.6% respectively.

The stock of State Bank of India (SBI) gave up close to 12% since January 2018, translating a market capitalization loss of Rs 23, 108 crore. PNB also witnesses a similar market cap erosion of Rs 24,128 crore during the same period.

Since the beginning of the year, shares of the largest real-estate developer – DLF has plunged 38.9% to Rs 158.45 on NSE, translating a loss of Rs 17,997 crore in market value.

In the Media index, shares of Eros International Media lost the most with 62.4% fall whereas DEN Networks fell close to 51%.

On Monday, the stock of Zee Entertainment Enterprises hit its 52-week low of `423.20 on NSE, the stock has lost nearly a quarter of its value between January and now after its stellar rally in which it beat the Nifty returns for seven years in a row through 2017.