Barely a day after January 2012 was hailed as the best-ever January for the stock market in nearly two decades, the market was in a tizzy to digest the impact of the Supreme Court verdict in the telecom licence case on not only the telecom companies that have been affected directly or indirectly by the verdict but even on the banks who may have exposure to the telecom sector.
An assessment of the impact of the judgment immediately after it was delivered on the market could be gauged from the fact that the Sensex, which was up by about 190 points after the markets opened this morning, started slipping.
The Sensex shed nearly 150 points from the gains it had made at about 11.30 am, though it recovered slightly after that.
Bank Nifty was a huge loser as the banking sector has a significant exposure to the telecom sector and the question of the health of the advances made by them weighed in with the investors.
SBI lost nearly Rs 77.65 or 3.74 per cent to trade at Rs 2,000. Other significant losers among the Bank Nifty stocks were PNB which shed Rs 16.05 to trade at Rs 939.75 and Axis Bank which was down by Rs 17.05 at Rs 1,071.05.
Many of the other Bank Nifty stocks lost marginally. The only Bank Nifty stock that was in the green was Bank of India, which was up by Rs 2.30 at Rs 343.20. Bank Nifty lost 131.45 points.