In a bloody carnage on Dalal Street, market benchmark Sensex plunged by 807.07 points on Thursday, its biggest fall in six months, to settle below 23,000-level after 21 months as fears of a global slowdown and disappointing quarterly numbers combined to batter investor sentiment.
Total investor wealth, measured in terms of cumulative market value of all listed stocks, tanked by more than Rs 3 lakh crore.
So far this year, the market valuation of BSE-listed companies has come down sharply by Rs 14 lakh crore from Rs 1,00,37,734 crore on December 31, 2015.
“Markets fell steeply on the back of continuing concerns about a global slowdown and consequent impact on the financial sector. Quarterly results declared over the past few days have also not met up to the muted expectations and that also impacted sentiments,” said Dipen Shah, Senior Vice-President & Head of Private Client Group Research, Kotak Securities.
Going ahead, global concerns will remain at centre-stage and will likely dictate market sentiments, he added.
Following today’s fall, the Sensex has come off over 23 per cent from its all-time peak of 30,024 points recorded on March 4, 2015.
It was a sea of red at the BSE Sensex, where 28 out of the 30-bluechip scrips suffered losses.
Adani Ports, BHEL, Tata Motors, ONGC, Mahindra & Mahindra and Tata Steel were the top losers.
Cipla and Dr Reddys Lab, however, ended with mild gains.
“Bears tightened their grip across the globe. Relentless selling in the stock market is coming from redemption pressures, crude slumping to multi-year lows, depreciating rupee against dollar and disappointing earnings,” said Gaurav Jain, Director, Hem Securities.
At the BSE, 2,359 stocks declined, while only 324 advanced. The prices of 96 stocks remained unchanged.
“The colour of the day was red as the selling rout of the previous 3 sessions intensified today, pushing key benchmark indices in India to trade at 21 month lows,” said Shreyash Devalkar, Fund Manager-Equities, BNP Paribas Mutual Fund.
With this domestic equities have entered a ‘bear market,’ which experts define as a fall of 20 per cent from all-time peak.
The BSE Sensex after opening lower at 23,758.46 continued to slide on heavy selling pressure in blue-chips, forcing the index to touch a low of 22,909.12 before settling at 22,951.83 showing a fall of 807.07 points or 3.40 per cent.
The 50-share NSE Nifty broke the 7,000-mark after plunging 239.35 points or 3.32 per cent to 6,976.35.
The stocks that closed with losses include Adani Ports, BHEL, Tata Motors, ONGC, M&M, Tata Steel, HDFC, RIL, Axis Bank, GAIL, Maruti, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Lupin and ITC falling up to 6.94 per cent. Only Cipla and Dr Reddy’s ended in the green territory.
Among BSE sectoral indices, realty suffered the most at 5.94 per cent followed by power (4.81 per cent), PSU (3.90 per cent), oils & gas (3.82 per cent), metal (3.81 per cent), banking (3.81 per cent), capital goods (3.57 per cent) and auto (3.53 per cent).
The broader markets also performed weak with the BSE small-cap index falling 4.64 per cent and mid-cap down 3.27 per cent.
Weak quarterly earnings of key corporates, global economic growth prospects and continued selling pressure by foreign portfolio investors and oil prices tanked again on fears of a deepening economic slowdown, dampened the sentiment.
Country’s biggest lender State Bank of India fell by 2.99 per cent to Rs. 154.20 after it posted 67 per cent decline in consolidated profit to Rs 1,259.49 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2015—16.
Overseas, Asian and European shares declined, as investors weighed a warning from Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen that global financial market turbulence could hurt US growth.
Hong Kong listed shares plunged 3.85 per cent to a three year low, while European markets were also down in their early trend.
