Sensex crashes 1,689 pts on US election woes; realty plunges 12% on blackmoney worries

In sync with the bearish mood that swept other Asian indices earlier, Dalal Street too came under the grip of US election mania with the latest news indicating Donald Trump ahead in the presidential race, thereby triggering a wave of selling frenzy across the board. According to the latest numbers, Trump was leading in 197 seats against 131 seats won by Clinton, signalling the widening lead attained by the Republican. [caption id=“attachment_2539126” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  PTI[/caption] As markets feared a Trump win would result in a shift in the existing policies going ahead, world markets, including the US futures, took a beating. The 30-share benchmark Sensex, too, felt the heat and crashed more than 1,500 points at the opening bell as across-the-board selling dragged the index to a low of 25,902, down 1,689 points. At 9.45 am, the Sensex was at 26,925.07, down 666.07 points, or 2.4 percent. However, the index has so far recovered 1,023 points from its low level, suggesting buying at lower levels in select counters. After falling more than 500 points at the start of trading session, the broader 50-stock CNX Nifty, too, has trimmed its losses and was down 227 points or 2.7 percent at 8,316.55. US stock futures surrendered modest gains and recoiled more than 3 percent, according to agency reports. In commodity markets, gold climbed to $1,308.00 an ounce as the dollar slid. Oil turned tail with US crude shedding $1.34 to $43.63, while Brent fell $1.24 to $44.80 Other Asian indices such as Japan’s Nikkei plunged 4.85 percent, while Hang Seng dropped 2.9 percent and Shanghai Composite was down 1.3 percent. Others such as Jakarta Composite, Straits Times and KLSE Composite were down over 1-2 percent each. The broad market sentiment was extremely weak, with 1,896 stocks declining against 103 advances on BSE. In a move aimed at flushing out fake currency and rooting out blackmoney from the system, Prime minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday night in a surprise move announed the discontinuation of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes with immediate effect, sending shock waves with realty sector boring the maximum brunt. The BSE Realty index crashed a whopping 11.8 percent, even as other sectoral indices were down over 4-5 percent each. Among the realty stocks, shares of Prestige plunged 14.7 percent, HDIL slumped 14.6 percent, Indiabulls Real Estate tumbled 14.3 percent, DLF dropped 13.7 percent, Unitech shed 12.6 percent, Sobha Developers crashed 7.5 percent and Oberoi Realty lost 7.4 percent. Omaxe, Godrej Properties and NBCC, too, were down over 1-4 percent each. In the Sensex pack, shares of Mahindra & Mahindra tumbled 5.8 percent, Adani Ports dropped 5.6 percent, Bajaj Auto shed nearly percent, Bharti Airtel declined 4.6 percent and ICICI Bank was down 4.5 percent. Others such as HeroMoto Corp, Sun Pharma, HDFC, Wipor, Cipla and Hindustan unilever were down over 3-4 percent each.