The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex on Tuesday plunged by more than 220 points amid a free fall in Asian bourses on fresh concerns that the worst is not yet over for the world banking industry as RBS yesterday said it expected a staggering loss over 40 billion dollars for 2008.
After opening sharply lower, the BSE barometer closed the day points at 9,100.55, down by 229.02 points, or 2.45 per cent, with only power and PSU stocks escaping the selling pressure. Metal, realty and banking suffered heavy losses.
The broader index on the National Stock Exchange Nifty also lost 49.60 points, or 1.74 percent, to end at 2796.60.
Marketmen said European bourses fell sharply yesterday which mirrored in Asian stocks today and they closed lower by as much as 3 percent.
They said the investors feared more capital outflows on concerns of crisis in the global financial markets deepening.
Rupee’s weakening against the dollar also influenced trading in software exporting stocks as over 50 percent of the revenue comes from the US markets.
Besides the banking and realty indices which lost 3.11 percent and 3.31 percent respectively, IT stocks were also hit. Infosys Technologies led the fall in IT companies by shedding Rs 10.15 at Rs 1,249.40.
Reliance Industries, amid intense anticipation of its third quarter earnings, lost Rs 47.25 at Rs 1182.40. Infosys and RIL together carry nearly 23 percent weightage on the Sensex.
Among the 30-BSE index shares, 27 remained lower on all-round selling while three - NTPC, Reliance Infra and Tata Power,were higher on some investment buying.
Metal sector index suffered the most by losing 3.76 percent as most of the stocks fell on reports of a weakening trend in the London Metal Exchange.
Realty sector was second worst performer at 3.31 per cent with segment majors DLF Ltd., Unitech, OMAX, Indiabulls Realestate and Anantraj Ind recording heavy losses.
Oil and gas index fell by 2.60 percent, auto index 2.59 percent, Teck index 2.47 percent, capital goods index 1.99 percent, consumer durable 1.28 percent, IT index 1.04 per cent and healthcare index 0.94 percent.
However, power sector index rose by 1.44 percent to 1803.09 and PSU index by 0.33 percent to 5143.06.
