Mumbai, April 15 : After a largely volatile trade, the Indian equity market ended in the red with the BSE Sensex losing over 300 points. The Sensex gained over 800 points earlier in the day trade to touch an intra-high of 31,568.36 before reversing all the gains in the last hour of trade. It closed at 30,379.81, lower by 310.21 or 1.01 per cent from its previous close of 30,690.02. It had opened at 31,277.11 and touched an intra-day high low of 30,222.07 points. The Nifty50 on the National Stock Exchange closed at 8,925.30, lower by 68.55 points or 0.76 per cent from the previous close. Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research at HDFC Securities, said broad market indices like the BSE Midcap and Small Cap indices gained, thereby outperforming the Sensex and Nifty. Sectorally, the top gainers were the BSE FMCG, Realty and Capital Goods indices, while the top losers were the BSE Banking, Energy, Auto and Consumer Durable indices. "Major Asian markets have closed on a negative note. European indices like the FTSE, CAC and DAX have ended lower," Jasani said. Rahul Sharma, Head of Technical Research at Equity 99, said: "In an extreme volatile trading session, markets erased most of the gains ahead of the earnings seasons and weak global sentiments thereby extending losses to a second straight session as the country entered an extended lockdown to fight the spread of the coronavirus pandemic." He noted that traders continued to square-off long positions ahead of the earnings seasons on weak earnings estimates. Markets will continue to remain range bound as the extended nationwide lockdown till May 3 is expected to result in a sharp drop in gross domestic product for the year, he said, adding that without any economic or financial road map trading sentiments will continue to remain weak and stock specific. Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services, said: "Indian markets seemingly set aside the economic implications of the extended lockdown, although it lost ground on the negative opening in the European markets. With the earnings season starting, management commentary, on the impact of Covid-19 on their respective businesses, will be in focus." He said that almost all sectors have been affected by the lockdown and the market will try to measure the future financial impact of this, rather than focusing on the previous quarter numbers. "This is expected to drive stock specific moves in the market in the coming days. IT companies will officially kick off the earnings season and investors will be keen on how the virus spread has impacted their services and the locations in which those services are offered," Nair said. /IANS