Mumbai. Amid rising tension in West Asia and weak trend in the Japanese market, there was a big fall in the domestic stock markets on Monday due to heavy selling in the shares of big companies. The Sensex slipped 1,272 points while the Nifty took a dive of 368 points.
Analysts said that apart from heavy selling in Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank, the market also fell due to withdrawal of foreign capital. BSE’s benchmark index Sensex based on 30 shares fell 1272.07 points or 1.49 percent and closed at 84,299.78. At one time during trading, the Sensex had slipped by 1,314.71 points to 84,257.14.
The standard index Nifty of National Stock Exchange (NSE) also closed at 25,810.85 points with a big fall of 368.10 points or 1.41 percent. Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research, HDFC Securities, said, “It was the worst day for Nifty in the last two months. Weakness in Asian markets, increasing tensions in West Asia and the fear of foreign capital shifting to China due to the Chinese government’s promotional measures caused a major blow to the market. Among the companies included in the Sensex group, shares of Reliance Industries and Axis Bank registered a decline of more than three percent. Apart from these, ICICI Bank, Nestle, Tech Mahindra, Mahindra & Mahindra, Maruti Suzuki, Bajaj Finserv, State Bank of India (SBI) and Tata Motors also showed a declining trend.
On the other hand, shares of JSW Steel, NTPC, Tata Steel, Titan and Asian Paints registered a rise. Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Financial Services, said, “There was volatility in the global markets due to the threat of increasing geopolitical risks in West Asia and the increase in the rates of the Japanese currency Yen. On the contrary, there was an improvement trend in the Chinese market due to the big stimulus package. Nair said that due to pressure from global markets and high valuations, Indian markets also remained in decline.
BSE Midcap index declined by 0.28 percent while Smallcap index managed to take a slight gain of 0.07 percent. Among sector wise indices, maximum decline of 1.91 percent was recorded in vehicle segment, 1.82 percent in bank segment and 1.80 percent in realty segment. There was growth in metal and commodity segments.
In Asian markets, South Korea’s Kospi and Japan’s Nikkei closed with big losses, while China’s Shanghai Composite and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng showed a bullish trend. Japan’s benchmark index Nikkei 225 fell by nearly five percent. In contrast, a big jump of eight percent was seen in Shanghai Composite.
Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold heavily. According to stock market data, FIIs made a net sale of shares worth Rs 1,209.10 crore on Friday. Meanwhile, global oil standard Brent crude fell 0.19 percent to $ 71.84 per barrel.