India-Sensex
Stock market barometer Sensex slipped below the 9,000 points to over two-year lows in trading Friday.
The 30-share index, which lost nearly 912 points in the last two sessions, plunged by 786.42 points to 8,985.28 points as all the sectoral indices, led by banking, were in the negative zone, said the reports received from India\'s business capital, Mumbai.
The National Stock Exchange index Nifty tumbled by 243.35 points to 2,699.80.
Market analysts said absence of any market friendly measure in the RBI\'s annual monetary policy, accelerated selling pressure, particularly in the banking sector stocks.
All eyes are now on the credit policy review by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Friday.
The Central Bank was expected to hold key rates unchanged at Friday morning\'s review, although it may offer further explanation for the drastic easing of the past two weeks.
Banking stocks ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and State Bank of India fell in the range of 3-6 per cent ahead of RBI\'s monetary policy, to be announced this afternoon.
Marketmen said apart from weakening global equity markets, dismal quarterly earnings by corporates also adversely affected the trading sentiments.
Meanwhile, the US Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged over two per cent last evening, while Japan\'s Nikkei fell by 7.1 to go below 8,000 points mark for the first time in over five years.
Hong Kong\'s Hang Seng was down 2.1 per cent in early trading.
