Wednesday was a rough day for the Indian stock market! Following some gloomy news from across the globe, our own benchmark indices woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Thanks to shaky economic situations in big-wig economies like the US, China, and the Euro zone, there was a raincloud of caution hovering over everyone. We all could feel the chill of an impending slowdown in these economies.
Our headliner, the 30-scrip Sensex, took a nasty tumble of nearly 1,000 points. It was a downhill slide across the Indian market, with the titans Tata Steel and Tata Motors tripping and leading the tumble.
As the clock struck 04:30 ET (or 08:30 GMT for our friends across the pond), Nifty 50 had nose-dived 1.46% to the 19,446.6 mark. The poor thing even stumbled to an intraday low of 19,438.15. And boy, oh boy, the Sensex! It lost a whopping 982.5 points or 1.48% and crashed through a grand total of 1,027.6 points that session.
Meanwhile, India VIX, our very own measure of market volatility, was caught up in the whirlwind. It soared 15% to 11.79 and was last seen trading 13.03% higher at 11.63 points. What a wild ride, eh?
The big blow to the market came from Fitch Ratings. They went ahead and downgraded the US sovereign credit grade from AAA to AA+. This little ripple has caused some mild tremors in emerging markets like ours. But the experts assure us there’s no need to panic. This is not likely to shake the Indian market as much as we initially thought.
But no doubt, Dalal Street was feeling the heat. The banking, auto, and metal sectors were the culprits, dragging the market lower. This led to a slump that spread across the board.
Every single index under the Nifty umbrella was drenched in red. Nifty PSU Bank was the worst off with a slide of over 3%, closely followed by Nifty Metal. Nifty Bank wasn’t far behind either, plunging nearly 2% during the day.
Leading the fall on the Nifty 50 pack were the likes of Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Hero MotoCorp, Eicher Motors, and NTPC. It wasn’t all doom and gloom, though. Divi’s Laboratories and Nestlé managed to keep their heads above water and even score some gains. What a day, eh? Let’s hope for smoother sailing ahead!
