Markets jittery; Sensex falls 272 points

Fears of a widening nuclear crisis in quake-hit Japan sent ripples across global markets, with most of the leading equity indices ending the day deep in the red on Tuesday. While the Indian benchmark Sensex dipped below the psychological mark of 18,000 during the day, it recovered some of the losses.

Japan’s Nikkei lost more than 10 per cent on Tuesday, moving towards its biggest loss in more than two decades.

The Sensex of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) opened over 300 points lower compared with the previous day’s close. During the day, it dipped more than 500 points before some amount of buying helped it recover a part of the losses.

It finally ended the day at 18,167.64, down 271.84 points or 1.47 per cent. All the sectoral and broader indices of the exchange also ended in the red.(Click here for table & graph)

The 50-share Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) lost 81.85 points or 1.48 per cent to end the day at 5,449.65.

Elsewhere in Asia, all the leading equity indices lost ground, with Seoul Composite, Taiwan Weighted, Straits Times and Hang Seng losing more than two per cent each. Japan’s Nikkei 225 and Topix have both lost nearly 18 per cent each since Friday last week, when the country was hit by an 8.9 magnitude earthquake.

Latest data coming from the European markets suggested a similar trend with FTSE losing nearly 150 points. Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC were down 4.38 per cent and 3.89 per cent, respectively.

Market experts are of the view that investor sentiment will remain jittery over the next few days until clarity emerges on the extent of financial loss and the repercussions of the natural disaster.

“We... believe the possible indirect impacts — on India’s nuclear energy policy, the reaction of Japanese businesses regarding India operations and investments, and Japanese capital flows into India (equity and debt), could have greater bearing over time,” said Citi in its India Equity Strategy report released on Monday.

Provisional figures showed that foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were net buyers on Tuesday at 148.28 crore. Domestic institutional investors, on the other hand, bought Indian shares worth Rs 567.10 crore.

Among the Sensex pack, Wipro, Sterlite Industries, ONGC, Maruti Suzuki, Jaiprakash Associates and DLF all lost more than three per cent. Interestingly, RIL and Reliance Communications were the only two gainers.