Sensex tanks 931 points, investors lose Rs 9.1 lakh crore

Sensex fell a whopping 931 on Wednesday to close 70,506.31. The Indian stock market went from new highs to a sharp fall within hours, as the benchmarks wiped out the morning gains on 20 December on wide-spread selling. The selling came even as the global market mood remained upbeat. Such was the fall in the domestic indices that investors wealth, as suggested by the BSE m-cap, fell Rs 9.11 lakh crore to Rs 350.01 lakh crore compared with a valuation of Rs 359.11 lakh crore that was recorded in the previous session. The 30-share BSE Sensex crashed 930.88 points or 1.30 per cent to settle at 70,506.31. The index opened higher and later gained 475.88 points or 0.66 per cent to hit its all-time high of 71,913.07. However, selling across the board dragged the barometer down from record highs and it dropped to a low of 70,302.60. The Nifty fell by 302.95 points or 1.41 per cent to 21,150.15. During the day, it climbed 139.9 points or 0.65 per cent to reach its record high of 21,593. As many as 28 stocks hit their 52-week lows today. “The domestic market saw a sharp and abrupt sell-off in the second half, despite the positive trend in global peers. This is attributable to profit-booking from the recent sharp rally stretching valuations of mid and small-cap stocks. The recent uptick in crude prices prompted investors to book profits,” a report by PTI quoted Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services, Vinod Nair, as saying. All the sectoral indices ended in the red. All the 30 Sensex shares, except for HDFC Bank, closed in the red. Auto, capital goods, metal, pharma, oil and gas, power and realty were down 2 to 4 per cent. BSE midcap and smallcap indices fell more than 3 per cent each, after hitting fresh highs of 36,483.16 and 42,648.86, respectively. BSE stocks including Paushak Ltd, Polyplex Corporation Ltd, Primo Chemicals and Shivalik Rasayan hit their respective one-year low levels. The sudden transition in market sentiment took participants by surprise, especially given the positive global and domestic cues. In Asian markets, Seoul, Tokyo and Hong Kong settled in the positive territory while Shanghai ended lower. European markets were trading mostly lower. The US markets ended in the green on Tuesday. Global oil benchmark Brent crude jumped 0.76 per cent to USD 79.83 a barrel. As per the exchange data, Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) Tuesday offloaded equities worth Rs 601.52 crore. With inputs from agencies