Paring some of its initial losses, the BSE benchmark Sensex was trading down by 247 points in late morning deals due to heavy selling in banking, realty and capital goods stocks after the Reserve Bank of India announced a slew of measures to arrest the fall of rupee.
Bank stocks slumped after RBI late Monday night announced measures to curb the rupee’s decline by tightening liquidity and making it costlier for banks to access funds from the central bank.
Sensex resumed lower at 19,788.09 and dropped further to a low of 19,649.58.
It recovered later to 19,811.47 before quoting at 19,787.24 at 10.30 a.m., down 247.24 points of 1.23 per cent from its last close, after Finance Minister P. Chidambaram in Jaipur said on Tuesday that India was likely to clock over 6 per cent growth in the financial year 2013-14.
The NSE 50-share Nifty also moved down by 82.35 points of 1.37 per cent to 5,948.45 at 10.30 a.m.
Major losers were ICICI Bank (5.26 per cent), HDFC (4.52 per cent), SBI (4.38 per cent), Larsen (3.07 per cent), HDFC Bank (2.75 per cent), Maruti (2.40 per cent) and Jindal Steel (1.88 per cent).
Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold shares worth a net Rs. 227.26 crore on Monday as per provisional data from the stock exchanges.
Asian stocks dropped in their early trade on concerns about an economic slowdown in China. Key benchmark indices in China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore were down 0.1 per cent to 0.68 per cent.
