Sensex Today: Sensex plummets over 1,500 points; Nifty below 17,150 | Business – Times of India

NEW DELHI: Equity indices crashed for the fifth straight session on Monday with the benchmark BSE sensex falling over 1,500 points amid heavy sell off across sectors.
In a highly volatile session, sensex fell over 3 per cent to day’s low of 56,984. The 30-share BSE index then recovered marginally to end 1,546 points or 2.62 per cent to at 57,492; while the broader NSE Nifty settled 468 points or 2.66 per cent lower at 17,149.
This was the biggest single-session fall for both sensex and Nifty since November 26 last year.
Investors lost Rs 9.13 lakh crore during the day as the market capitalisation of BSE-listed companies slipped to Rs 2.60 lakh crore.
In total, investors have lost Rs 19.5 lakh crore in 5 days of market fall since January 18. The m-cap of BSE-listed companies stood at Rs 2.80 lakh crore on January 17.
Tata Steel, Bajaj Finance, Wipro, Tech Mahindra and Titan were the top losers in the sensex pack falling as much as 5.98 per cent.
All 30-shares in the BSE index finished in red.
Similarly, on the NSE platform all sub-indices settled lower with Nifty Metal, Realty, Consumer Durables falling over 5 per cent.
Here are the top reasons for today’s market loss:
* IT, metal, realty stocks were worst hit
Technology stocks have been under pressure since last week as investors globally have been worried about high inflation and braced for tighter monetary policies.
The Nifty IT sub-index fell 3.42 per cent marking its sixth straight session of losses. The index fell more than 7 per cent last week.
While, the Nifty metal sub-index slid as much as 5.23 per cent. Shares of JSW Steel fell 6.92 per cent after the company’s quarterly net profit missed analysts’ estimates.
Realty stocks fell 5.9 per cent, while pharma stocks slipped 1.85 per cent to a nine-month trough.
* New age stocks experiencing correction
According to expert, stocks of the new age tech companies were the most affected due to drop in growth of profitability amid expensive valuations.
Food delivery platform Zomato crashed 19.65 per cent and online retailer Nykaa tumbled 12.93 per cent, hitting their lowest since 2021 debuts.
Both the shares have lost almost 30 per cent from their highest level that it scaled in November last year.
“Most stocks that went public recently are very expensive and a much needed correction is now underway,” Anita Gandhi, director at Arihant Capital Markets told news agency Reuters.
* Investors eye Fed meet
Investors have been growing increasingly worried about how aggressively the Federal Reserve, which will hold a policy meeting this week.
The Federal Reserve has its inflation-fighting weapons ready to fire and the focus will not be on whether they will pull the trigger but rather how many times.
Historically low interest rates, dubbed quantitative easing, or QE, have helped support the broader market as the economy absorbed a sharp hit from the pandemic in 2020 and then recovered over the last two years.
“The broad-based selling we saw last week has spilled over and only after the Fed meeting this week, we’ll be able to get some clarity on further moves,” Anita Gandhi, director at Arihant Capital Markets told news agency Reuters.
* Concerns over rising inflation
Rising costs are raising concerns that consumers will start to ease spending because of the persistent pressure on their wallets.
At the same time, outbreaks of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus are threatening to slow recoveries from the crisis.
Some economists believe the Fed and other central banks need to move faster to tamp down surging prices by raising rates.
US consumer prices rose 7 per cent in December compared to a year earlier, the biggest increase in nearly four decades.
* Weak global cues
Markets across Asia followed the US stock exchanges which ended with significant losses in the overnight session on Friday. In fact, Wall Street logged its worst week since the pandemic began in 2020.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index had dipped 2.7 per cent to 13,768.92. It has fallen for four straight weeks and is now more than 10 per cent below its most recent high, putting it in what Wall Street considers a market correction.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.3 per cent to 34,265.37.
The Hang Seng in Hong Kong shed 1.2 per cent to 24,656.46. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.5 per cent to 7,139.50.
South Korea’s Kospi dropped 1.5 per cent to 2,792.00 on heavy selling of big technology companies like Samsung and LG Chemical. Thailand’s SET lost 0.7 per cent.
(With inputs from agencies)