Sensex tumbles 324 pts on China slowdown fears, rupee slide

Domestic stocks crumbled sharply, joining global sell-off as fresh concerns of a looming Chinese economic slowdown and sliding commodity prices dampened the sentiment with the rupee hitting a fresh two-year low causing investors to reduce exposure to riskier assets, including equity markets.[caption id=“attachment_2400866” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] PTI[/caption] While Brent crude fell 0.6 percent to $46.88 a barrel and inched closer towards the six-year low of $45.19, MSCI’s emerging market index hitting a four-year low on persisting pull out of funds from the emerging economies also added to the caution, said dealers. Tracking big drop in key Asian and European stocks markets following overnight fall in the US indices, investors back home offloaded shares of IT, banking, metals, auto and realty companies, pushing the Sensex to the day’s low of 27,564.16, down 368 points. Thursday, the 30-share BSE S&P Sensex ended the session at 27,607.82, down 323.82 points, or 1.2 percent from previous close. The broader 50-share CNX Nifty closed at 8,372.75, down 122.40 points, or 1.4 percent. Market breadth ended weak with 2,075 stocks declining against 763 advances on BSE. The rupee, after holding steady on Wednesday, once again started declining today and hit a fresh two-year low to trade at 65.46 to dollar, down 19 paise over its previous close. Globally, key Asian indices such as Hang Seng, Shanghai Composite and Nikkie ended around 1-3.5 percent lower, while European counterparts also exhibited weakness. Further, RBI governor Rajan stating that progress on monsoon will be keenly watched to assess the overall impact on inflation raised uncertainty about the likely prospect of interest rate cut. Among the laggards in the Sensex pack, shares of Vedanta tumbled 4 percent to Rs 98.50, Axis Bank declined 3.7 percent to Rs 534.20, Reliance Industries lost 3.5 percent to Rs 918.85, BHEL fell 3.3 percent to Rs 253.35, Tata Steel dipped 3.3 percent to Rs 241.65 and Infosys was down 3.1 percent at Rs 1,138.20. Others such as Gail, SBI, Tata Motors, M&M, HeroMoto Corp, Bajaj Auto, ONGC, Coal India and ICICI Bank were down nearly 2-3 percent. Several mid and small-cap shares also came under hammering after rallying sharply in recent months. Small-cap firm Amtek Auto continued its downward spiral, ending 28 percent lower at Rs 63.75 after crashing to its 52-week low of Rs 50.70 in intra-day trade. However, select pharma and FMCG shares bucked the trend as investors bet on defensive stocks. Shares of Lupin rose 5.4 percent to Rs 1,892.10, ITC moved up 3.9 percent to Rs 329, Dr Reddy’s gained 1.5 percent to Rs 4,297, Sun Pharma added nearly 1 percent to Rs 935.65 and Hindustan Unilever ended a tad higher at Rs 876.