Sensex closes 381 points down

A benchmark index of Indian equities markets closed Monday's trade nearly two percent or 381 points down on sustained selling in rate-sensitive shares in the wake of a surprise rate hike Friday by the Reserve Bank of India.

The 30-scrip S&P Sensex of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened at 20,060.82 points, closed (provisionally) at 19,883.07 points, down 380.64 points or 1.88 percent from its previous day's close at 20,263.71 points.

The benchmark Sensex surged to a high of 20,199.81 points and a low of 19,826.30 points in the day's trade.

The wider 50-scrip S&P CNX Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) also lost heavily. It slid 128.85 points or 2.14 percent at 5,883.25 points.

RBI on Sep 20 increased the repurchase or repo rate by 0.25 percent to 7.5 percent. Repo rate is what commercial banks pay when they borrow short-term money from the RBI.

The reverse repo rate, or the interest rate that RBI pays to the commercial banks on their short-term deposits, is adjusted to 6.5 percent from the earlier 6.25 percent.

The RBI move will make home, auto and other loans costlier and worsen the industrial and overall growth situation which is already sluggish.

Sector-wise bank, capital goods, oil and gas, automobile and fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) stocks sustained heavy losses. However, consumer durables, information technology, technology, entertainment and media (TECk) stocks gained.

The S&P BSE bank index lost 558.44 points, capital goods index was down 271.99 points, followed by oil and gas index by 160.56 points, automobile index was down 140.74 points and fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) index was down 83.66 points.

Healthy buying took place in consumer durables stocks. The consumer durables index increased by 115.66 points, followed by IT index which was up 77.03 points and TECk index which was up 20.14 points.