Bloodbath in stock markets; Sensex crashes 1, 625

The stock markets on Monday witnessed a bloodbath with the benchmark BSE Sensex crashing over 1,600 points amid a global rout.

The BSE 30-share index crashed 1,625 points to close at 25,742.

Nifty also tanked 491 points to close at 7,809.

The market witnessed all-round heavy selling across realty, power, oil and gas, bankex, auto, metal, capital goods and IT sectors.

Realty indices too tumbled by nearly 11 per cent with HDIL, IB Real Estate and DLF leading the pack of losers. While HDIL fell almost 19%, IB Real Estate and DLF were down by 17.40% and 15.56% respectively. Unitech, DB Realty, NBCC too witnessed double digit percentage fall.

In the worst-ever carnage in stock market, benchmark Sensex crashed by 1,624.51 points and nearly Rs 7 lakh crore got wiped out from the investors’ wealth as rout in Chinese stocks triggered a global sell-off.

The intra-day fall was even larger at 1,741.35 points –the third biggest ever and highest in over seven years since January 21, 2008, even as Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, among others, sought to allay the fears and said fundamentals of Indian markets remain strong.

During the day, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan told a banking conference that India was in a good position relative to other countries to withstand the current global markets volatility.

“India is better placed compared to other countries with low current account deficit, and fiscal deficit discipline, moderate inflation, low short-term foreign currency liabilities, very sizeable base of forex reserves,” he said.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley also downplayed the sell-off, calling it “transient and temporary in nature”.

“The factors responsible for this are entirely external,” he said in New Delhi. “There is not a single domestic factor in India which has either contributed to it or added to it.”

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