Sensex, Nifty touch five-month lows, toe global turmoil

The week started on an unpleasant note for the stock market, whose benchmark Sensex on Monday tanked 471 points on fears of recession in the world economy and sustained FII pull out.

This was the fifth biggest point-wise fall in the history of the 30-share Sensex, which closed down 3.66 per cent at 12,415.04 in an otherwise volatile trading.

The turmoil on bourses began with a nearly nine per cent steep fall in Chinese market on February 27 that triggered a global meltdown inducing fears of a slowdown in the world economy and sustained FII pull out from equity markets.

The benchmark Sensex and the Nifty had lost more than 5.0 per cent during last week's carnage.

Tracking extremely weak Asian trend, the Sensex started the week with a wide gap at 12,716.85 from previous close of 12,886.13 and tumbled to a five-month low of 12,344.44, a loss of 542 points within the initial 30 minutes of trading. The losses were cu t to 471 points at close.

Similarly, the broader S&P CNX Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) crashed by 150.25 points or 4.03 per cent to 3,576.50 from previous close of 3,726.75.

Key indices in Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan ended down 2.5 per cent to 4.0 per cent. The Dow Jones industrial average ended 120.24 points down at 12,114.10 and the Nasdaq Comp Index 36.21 points at 2,368.00 on Friday.

Brokers said Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) seem to be pulling out to invest in countries like Japan which now could provide higher yields due to strengthening yen.

The meltdown in stock markets is considered to be a major jolt to the world economy while a section of brokers felt that the fall offered attractive levels for investments. FIIs pulled out about 3,693 crore (including Friday's provisional data) during la st week.

The market breadth remained extremely negative as 2,363 counters registered losses while only 220 closed with gains on a day when trading was extended till 4.15 p.m. due to sun outage. Trading on the bourses has been extended till 4.15 p.m. Trading on Ma rch 19 too would close at the same time as today.

The trading volume declined further modestly to Rs 3,996.41 crore from Rs 4,006.94 crore on Friday. RIL remained the top traded share with the highest turnover of Rs 234.84 crore followed by Reliance Com (Rs 169.46 crore), Bharti Airtel (Rs 149.11 crore) , Apollo Hospital (Rs 147.45 crore) and Infosys Tech (Rs 87.57 crore).

The broad-based BSE-100 index tumbled by 263.27 points to 6,223.12 from previous close of 6,486.39.

The BSE-200 index and the Dollex-200 were quoted sharply down at 1,471.65 and 549.23 at close compared to last close of 1,535.92 and 577.10 respectively. The BSE-500 Index slumped by 210.62 points to 4,696.06 against previous close of 4,906.68 and the Do llex-30 ended lower at 2,284.85 from 2,387.77.