No respite... Sensex tanks over 600pts

Relentless selling has taken markets to fresh calendar year lows. The Sensex is now down over 600 points at 17,080, and the Nifty has plunged 184 points to 5,147.
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(Updated at 1130 hrs)

The markets continue to languish near the lows on extremely negative cues from the global peers. The Sensex witnessed the worst opening in nearly two years - at 17,350 - down over 340 points. The index moved lower on selling pressure in metal and IT stocks and touched a low of 17,210. The index is now down 457 points (2.5%) at 17,236. The Nifty has plunged 142 points at 5,189.

Recession jitters inflated investors anxiety after series of weak economic data raised global growth concerns. On Thursday the European Central Banks held policy rates at 1.5% and resumed the purchase of government bonds after a hiatus of four months. The ECB also announced longer term funding for banks facing cash crunch.

Overnight, Wall Street indices were battered very badly on worries of US economic health. Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 4.3%, the biggest percentage drop since 2008. Even the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index declined 4.8% and the Nasdaq Composite Index shed 5.1%. Asian markets also tumbled with the Hang Seng down 5%, with Nikkei, Straits Times and Seoul Composite following close behind.

Worries of the hike in interest rates slowing down corporate earnings growth further also weighed on investor sentiments. Interest rate and export sensitive, blue-chip stocks have tumbled this morning. 11 out of the Nifty 50 stocks have touched a new 52-week low, including metal bigweights - Sail, Hindalco and Jindal Steel.

India's most valuable stock, in terms of market weightage, Reliance, slipped has slipped nearly 3% to Rs 790 after outputs from the KG-D6 fields fell 27% to around 47 million standard cubic meters per day in June.

BSE IT index has slumped 4.5% to 5,426 after the slide in US markets. US is the biggest market for services of Indian IT firms. Realty, auto and bankex dropped around 3% each.

Cipla was trading on a flat note ahead of its results today. ONGC, on the other hand, gained 0.7% to Rs 275.

The BSE market breadth continued to be extremely negative. Out of 2,653 stocks traded, 2,280 stocks have declined while 317 have advanced.