Stocks went on a roller coaster ride on Tuesday with the benchmark index oscillating more than 860 points as it failed to hold on to early gains because of lingering concerns over the economic impact of the lockdown amid poor corporate earnings.

The BSE Sensex on Tuesday gave investors some reasons to cheer as it hit the day’s high of 32264 — an intra-day gain of 549 points. However, the selloff at the fag end of the trading saw the Sensex touching the day’s low of 31403.57 and thereafter ending at 31453.51 — a loss of 261.84 points, or 0.83 per cent. On the NSE, the Nifty closed at 9205.60, slipping 87.90 points or 0.95 per cent.

“Investors are advised to trade cautiously tracking the global markets and stock specific earnings commentary,’’ Vinod Nair of Geojit Financial Services said.

The losses in the benchmark indices were led by financials as there are apprehensions that they could witness a spike in bad loans.

Provisional data from the bourses showed that foreign portfolio investors (FPI) were net sellers to the tune of Rs 1,059 crore on Tuesday.

Barring January and February 2020, these investors have remained sellers in both equity and debt markets during this calendar year.

Numbers from NSDL show that their sales peaked at Rs 62,000 crore in March and declined to Rs 6,884 crore in the following month. So far this month, the picture has been mixed in the equity markets even as FPIs continued to press sales in the debt markets.

Observers say that while the intensity of the FPI selling has come down, they are not aggressively buying stocks.

Meanwhile, the rupee recovered 10 paise to settle at 75.63 on the easing trade war concerns. This came as the dollar declined against major Asian currencies and the Euro.