The Hindu Business Line : Sensex tanks 612 pts to reach sub-18,000 levels

Mumbai, Feb. 7 Growing fears of a US recession pulled down Indian equities further on Thursday, battered as they were on Wednesday too for the same reason.

The Nifty and Sensex fell by 3.56 per cent and 3.38 per cent respectively, only a day after they had fallen by nearly 3 per cent each. The Sensex lost 612 points to reach sub-18,000 levels.

FIIs book profits

FIIs were net sellers by Rs 860 crore, booking profits to make up for losses in other geographies, analysts said. The situation in the global equity markets was as bad as on Wednesday, with the Asian indices Hong Kong’s Hang Seng and Singapore Straits Times falling 5.4 and 3.5 per cent. Some Asian markets were closed, and only the Japanese market closed in the green.

The steepest part of the fall here coincided with the European markets opening in the red, said analysts.

Deutsche Bank reported a 48 per cent fall in net income for the fourth quarter, a Bloomberg report said.

“The Deutsche Bank financials and news that FIIs are repatriating the recent IPO money refunds from India led to a sharp fall in the market during in the afternoon session,” Mr T.S. Harihar, Vice-President (Equity& Derivatives), Karvy Stock Broking, said, adding that there was huge dollar demand witnessed in the afternoon.

Rupee low

The rupee touched an intra-day low of 39.56 and closed at 39.53 versus the dollar as compared to the last close of 39.51.

The fall in Sensex was largely on the back of a big fall in the blue chips that have huge weightage on the index. Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank, and Larsen and Toubro fell by around four per cent each.

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