Sensex extends fall, sinks nearly 650 pts tracking weak Europe

The benchmark Sensex plunged deep into the red in mid-noon trade, crashing nearly 650 points, as the weak European markets prompted local investors to further liquidate their holdings across the sectors. Amid worries the US job data for last month to be announced later today could be better-than-expected, concerns of more foreign fund erosion from domestic equities created uneasiness amongst the investors. [caption id=“attachment_2421290” align=“alignleft” width=“300”] Reuters[/caption] Economists polled by Reuters expect the US economy to have produced 220,000 new non-farm jobs last month, continuing the robust employment creation of the past five years, while average hourly earnings are predicted to have risen by a modest 0.2 percent, as they did in July. Lingering in negative territory since the opening trades, the Sensex lost further ground to touch a low of 25,119.06, down 646 points. At 2.40 pm, the 30-share BSE S&P Sensex was at 25,221.77, down 543.01 points, or 2.1 percent. The broader 50-stock CNX Nifty was at 7,656.25, down 166.75 points, or 2.1 percent. Market breadth continued to stay weak with 2,159 stocks declining against 400 advances on BSE. Key European indices were down nearly 2 percent in early trades, ignoring the ECB statement which has indicated that its bond-buying programme may continue post September 2016. Several frontline stocks lost considerable ground in the afternoon trades. Shares of Vedanta tumbled nearly 5 percent to Rs 93.20, Tata Steel dropped 4.5 percent to Rs 219.40, Hindalco shed 4.1 percent to Rs 74, Dr Reddy’s fell 3.8 percent to Rs 4,048, Axis Bank declined 3.6 percent to Rs 469.15 and Tata Motors was down 3.4 percent at Rs 322. Other laggards such as ICICI Bank, HDFC, BHEL, Sun Pharma, SBI, NTPC, Gail, Infosys and Wipro were down over 2-3 percent.