Amix of domestic and global negative factors drove Indian equity benchmarks down more than 2% on Friday, with the Sensex shedding more than 1,400 points in the morning session.
On the global front, almost all leading equity markets across the world lost ground on Friday as the number of people infected by COVID-19 crossed the 10,000-mark even as close to 3,400 people have died since the outbreak.
Moratorium impact On the domestic front, investor sentiment was hit after the country’s fourth largest private sector lender Yes Bank was placed undermoratorium with withdrawal caps pegged at ₹50,000 till April 3. The 30-share Sensex, which touched an intraday low of 37,011.09, closed at 37,576.62, down 893.99 points or 2.32%.
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The broader Nifty ended at 10,989.45, shedding 279.55 points or 2.57%. Further, the India VIX index jumped nearly 12% on Friday.
Shares of Yes Bank and State Bank of India were in the limelight after the Reserve Bank of India late on Thursday issued a moratorium on the private sector lender while saying that an SBIled consortium would acquire stake in Yes Bank.
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Shares of Yes Bank lost nearly 85% during intra-day trades to touch a low of ₹5.55 — it closed at ₹36.85 on Thursday — before settling the day at ₹16.20, a fall of 56.04% compared to the previous day’s close. Meanwhile, SBI lost a little over 6% to close at ₹270.45.
Incidentally, the BSE Bankex lost over 1,100 points due to the weakness in most banking stocks on Friday. The overall market breadth was extremely negative, with more than 1,900 stocks losing ground as against less than 500 gainers.