The Indian bourses mirrored the global slide, triggered by US Federal Reserve’s monetary stimulus exit plan, and tanked sharply during the week amid heavy off-loading by foreign funds and operators even as the rupee touched new lows against the dollar.
The S&P BSE benchmark Sensex dropped for a third week in a row, losing 404 points to end at 18,774.24 on Friday. Foreign funds sold shares worth Rs 5,029.80 crore during the week, including the provision figure of June 21.
The Sensex resumed higher at 19,249.90 and moved up further to 19,383.61 amid RBI keeping key rates unchanged at its June 17 review meet, a move which was on expected lines.
However, the key index tanked 526 points on Thursday, its biggest single-day fall in nearly two years, on massive off-loading of shares following US Fed signal to exit monetary stimulus plan. A sharp fall in rupee, which hit a lifetime low of nearly 60 per dollar in mid-week, also spooked the markets.
Global markets went into a tizzy after Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said the central bank was likely to slow its bond- buying programme this year and end it in 2014. The Fed’s $85 billion-a-month scheme offered easy money for markets, said traders.
The 30-share Sensex finally ended at 18,774.24, showing a loss of 403.69 points, or 2.10 per cent, amid Finance Minister P Chidambaram’ assurance that there was no need to panic over rupee depreciation and the RBI will take necessary action to stem the Indian currency’s slide.
The widely-tracked BSE index has lost 986.06 points, or 4.99 per cent, in the last three weeks.
The slowing down of Chinese manufacturing sector also weighed on the investors sentiment.
The NSE 50-share Nifty also dropped by 140.75 points or 2.42 per cent to 5,667.65. It has also dropped by 318.30 points or 5.31 per cent in the last three weeks.
Twenty-two scrips out of the 30-share Sensex pack ended lower, while eight others finished higher.
Major losers were Jindal Steel (15.74 per cent), Hindalco (9.74 per cent), ICICI Bank (5.28 per cent), NTPC (5.26 per cent), HDFC Bank (4.45 per cent), GAIL (3.87 per cent), Tata Motors (3.28 per cent), BHEL (3.25 per cent), Larsen (3.23 per cent), Sterlite (2.89 per cent), ITC (2.88 per cent), SBI (2.73 per cent), (RIL 2.47 per cent) and Dr Reddy (2.42 per cent).
However, Bajaj Auto rose by 3.79 per cent followed by wipro 3.32 per cent, Maruti 2.63 per cent and Hero Honda 1.41 per cent.
Among the major indices S&P BSE Realty fell by 5.72 per cent followed by S&P BSE Bankex by 4.83 per cent, S&P BSE Metal by 4.22 per cent, S&P BSE PSU by 3.86 per cent, S&P BSE Power by 3.78 per cent, S&P BSE CG 3.01 per cent and S&P BSE Oil&Gas 2.29 per cent.
The S&P BSE Dollex-200 dropped by 5.27 per cent, the S&P BSE Dollex-100 by 5.25 per cent and S&P BSE Dollex-30 by 5.17 per cent.
However, S&P BSE Teck and S&P BSE IT ended marginally higher by 0.89 per cent and 0.30 per cent respectively.
The total tunrover at BSE and NSE fell to Rs 7,884.26 crore and Rs 49,317.29 crore respectively from the last weekend’s level of Rs 9,845.95 crore and Rs 51,080.54 crore