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Markets finished the session on a dismal note as the sharp sell-off in the global equities spooked investors. Caution prevailed across the bourses ahead of the US jobs data due to be released later today that may dictate the timing of a rate hike by the US Fed.
Provisionally, the Sensex crashed 559 points to end at 25,206 and the Nifty slumped 165 points to end at 7,658.
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(updated at 3:30 PM)Bears continued to grip markets, amid weak global cues, as institutional investors sold across the board amid deflation and global growth concerns.
At 2:20PM, the 30-share Sensex was down 635 points at 25,130 and the 50-share Nifty was down 193 points at 7,630.
The broader markets also witnessed selling pressure with both the BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices down over 2.6% each. Market breadth weakened further with 2,114 losers and 383 gainers on the BSE.
Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian on Wednesday flagged deflation as a new challenge for the economy even as he is in sync with the official Economic Survey's gross domestic product (GDP) growth forecast for 2015-16 of 8-8.5%.
The Indian rupee was trading 21 paise lower at 66.45 to the US dollar on concerns of foreign fund outflows and weakness in domestic equities.
Foreign institutional investors were net sellers in equities to the tune of Rs 394 crore, as per provisional stock exchange data.
GLOBAL MARKETS
Asian stocks also witnessed selling pressure with shares in Japan losing the most in the region. The benchmark Nikkei ended 2.2% lower while Singapore's Straits Times closed 1.4% down. Hong Kong's Hang Seng ended down 0.5%. Stock exchanges in China were closed for trading.
European shares were trading lower ahead of US jobs data later today which could be the decider on US Federal Reserve's stance on key interest rates. The CAC-40, DAX and FTSE-100 were down 1.4-1.7% each.
SECTORS & STOCKS
All sectoral indices were in the red with BSE Bankex, Power and Realty indices being the top losers down over 3% each followed by others.
In the financials segment, HDFC, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank and SBI were down 2-4% each.
IT exporters such as Infosys, Wipro and TCS were down 1.5-3% on profit taking ahead of US jobs data.
Pharma shares also witnessed profit taking despite a weak rupee. Sun Pharma and Dr Reddy's Labs and Cipla were down 1-4% each.
Other Sensex losers include, Reliance Industries, Tata Motors and L&T among others.
However, Bharti Airtel and Coal India were the sole gainers in the Sensex.
Among other shares, Jyothy Laboratories was up nearly 5% in an otherwise weak market amid reports that German consumer products company Henkel AG plans to buy a 26% stake in local fabric whitener and detergent maker.
