The Hindu Business Line : Stock markets take a battering again

Mumbai, Jan. 22 For the second day running equity values at the national bourses got a battering at the hands of the investors with benchmark indices at both the exchanges losing roughly five and six per cent at close on Tuesday.

The BSE Sensex shed 875 points to close at 16,730. The loss comes on top of 1,408 points it shed on Monday.

The NSE’s Nifty fared slightly worse, ending at 4,899 – a loss of 309 points over the previous close.

The markets got off to the worst possible start by straightway hitting the lower circuit with a 10 per cent fall in the first minute of trade in the morning, bringing the trading to a halt for an hour till 10.55 am.

There wasn’t much relief to be had when it reopened again at 10.55 am as the Sensex plunged to a low of 15,332 falling by 2,273 intra-day.

But some late afternoon action saw the emergence of some value buying leading to a strong pull back for the index to end the day lower by only 875 points.

Many investors said that they had a tough time liquidating their positions or picking up some stocks now available on attractive valuation as brokers could not put these trades through.

Informed sources said as many as 90 brokers’ trading terminals were switched off as they were not able to keep the margin money with the exchanges. There was, however, no official confirmation available on this.

The selling came again largely from the Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) as they sold stock worth Rs 4,265 crore, which was a roughly Rs 1,000 crore more than the selling recorded by them on Monday. Domestic Institutional Investors were net buyers by Rs 2,778.71 crore as per the provisional combined data for the NSE and BSE.