Sensex crashes over 1500 pts, $72b Lost in 28 minutes

While the Nifty 50 hit a low of 16,653 points, the Sensex fell nearly 1,100 points to 55922.58, with the selloff not abating, the Indian Stock Market began Monday’s session deep in the red amid renewed concerns about the Omicron variant of COVID-19 and its impact on the global economy. 

According to the reports of Indian media, markets have plunged to the lowest level in nearly 4 months time amid ‘Omicron’ scare with Indian investors losing around $72 billion in 28 minutes of market activity. As soon as the business started today, investors became panic stricken as the Indian equity benchmarks Sensex and Nifty50 fell from the beginning with a fresh bout of sell-off triggered by the rising spread of Omicron infections around the world.

According to the media reports, Hindustan Unilever (HUL) and Dr Reddy’s Laboratories were the only two Sensex stocks trading in the green on Monday afternoon. While HUL was up nearly 0.80%, Dr Reddy’s gained 0.60%. All other Sensex stocks were down in red.

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All sectors, including information technology (IT), were bleeding on December 20, 2021. Metals, real estate and financials seemed to be dragging the benchmark indices lower. Companies with higher global exposure were under massive pressure, with Motherson Sumi, Tata Motors, and Bajaj Auto down 5 percent, 4 percent and 1.9 percent, respectively.

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Moreover, Bandhan Bank, SAIL, Jindal Steel and Bajaj Finance were some of the biggest losers on the Nifty 100 index. Twins HDFC and HDFC Bank, with high foreign portfolio investor participation of 72 percent and 39 percent, were down 2.5 percent and 2.9 percent.

During the early trading hours, the Singapore Exchange Limited (SGX) Nifty was down with losses, indicating a gap-down start for the domestic indices. On Monday, SSE Composite Index, Hang Seng, Nikkei 225, Tokyo Stock Price Index (TOPIX), Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) and Korean Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (KOSDAQ) were all in the red. Furthermore, the United States (US) stocks closed lower on Friday.

Soorabh Jain, assistant vice-president of SMC Securities in New Delhi, told Reuters, “the Omicron variant is also troubling markets because its transmission is higher than other variants.”

The decline is also a result of continued sales by foreign institutional investors, he added.

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