Sensex sheds 249 pts ahead of Bihar exit polls; Nifty slips below 8,000-mark

The recent spate of downward trajectory in the equity markets intensified further on the penultimate trading session of the week, as nervous investors offloaded their positions ahead of the exit poll results of Bihar assembly elections scheduled to start later in the evening today.  With the last round of the month long five-phase Bihar state elections wrapping up today, selling pressure intensified towards the fag-end pulling down the Sensex to the day’s low of 26,243.20, down 310 points. Finally, the 30-share BSE S&P Sensex ended the session at 26,304.20, down 248.72 points, or nearly 1 percent lower. Today’s fall in absolute terms was the biggest since 22 September when the index tumbled 541 points. Including today’s fall, the Sensex has plunged 1,167 points in last nine trading sessions. The broader 50-stock CNX Nifty slipped below the psychological 8,000-mark to end at 7,955.45, down 84.75 points, or 1 percent. Market breadth was extremely weak with losers outnumbering gainers by nearly 2:1. Of the 2,815 stocks traded, 1,798 stocks declined, 900 advanced and 117 were unchanged on BSE. In fact, Indian markets today under-performed the rest of the Asian pack, which ended with splendid gains. While Japan’s Nikkei rose 1 percent, China’s Shanghai Composite jumped 1.8 percent and Hang Seng ended 0.4 percent higher. Key European gauges also mostly exhibited a firm trend in their mid-day trade. Stock market experts said the fall was primarily due to uneasiness among the investors ahead of the exit polls, which prompted them to take evasive action in case of any adverse outcome from the election results. “Investors were worried of the final outcome of the Bihar polls, with mixed views coming in last few days. Although, the result will not have any major impact on the overall sentiment, the next couple of sessions will be important to watch as exit poll numbers will certainly influence the undertone of the market,” said G Chokkalingam, founder & managing director of Equinomics Research & Advisory. Besides the election hysteria, market experts also said the US Fed reiterating that it would stick to its December dealine for hiking key rates and subdued corporate earnings season also added to the overall pessimism. “More than Bihar election outcome, concerns over likely interest rate hike by the US Fed in December and no significant improvement in corporate earnings led to the fall in markets today,” said Jagannadham Thunuguntla - head of fundamental research, Karvy Stock Broking. Dragging the markets, shares of Vedanta tumbled 4.7 percent to Rs 94.10, Tata Steel dropped 4.3 percent to Rs 225.60, Sun Pharma shed 4.3 percent to Rs 815.85, BHEL lost 3.3 percent to Rs 194.20 and Bharti Airtel declined 2.8 percent to Rs 335.90. Among other laggards, shares of Gail, Cipla, Axis Bank, SBI, Reliance Industries, TCS, Bajaj Auto and Infosys were down over 1-2% each. Wide-spread selling was also evident in several second-rung stocks as both BSE Mid-cap index (down 1.5 percent) and BSE Small-cap index (down 1.6 percent) under-performed their large-cap benchmark indices.