India - Sensex crashes below 8,000 level

Mumbai: The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex plunged by over 1,000 points at midsession on Monday on panic selling by funds and general investors.
The 30-share index, which recorded a huge 25% fall in the last two trading sessions, recorded a loss of 1,003.68 points to 7,697.39 at 1:30pm a level last seen on 28 October, 2005.
The wide-based National Stock Exchange index Nifty broke the crucial 2,300-points level by dropping 331.25 points at 2,252.75 at the same time.
Marketmen said selling pressure gathered momentum as market participants feared that government’s measures might fail to check a free fall in stocks.
They said the market even discounted reports of encouraging results by banks like SBI and other companies, ahead of a special ‘Muhurat´ trading session on Diwali, Tuesday.
The benchmark Sensex has cracked a new low in three years when it crashed below 8,000 points to 7,985.43, as funds remained aggressive sellers.
The Sensex plunged by 723.12 points at 12:45am, with almost all the sectorial indices moving in the negative zone. The key index last saw this level on 1 November, 2005.
Similarly, the wide-based National Stock Exchange index Nifty tumbled by 243.75 points to 2340.25 at the same time.
Tracking their global counterparts, the stock markets plunged by 644 points at 11am largely due to sustained capital outflows.
Taiwan Weighted Index was down by 5.65%, Hang Seng by 4.22%, Shanghai Composite by 3.61%, Kospi by 2.21% and Nikkei by 0.21% in their early trade on Monday.
Realty stocks, however, attracted heavy buying support at the prevailing lower levels. The BSE Realty Index was quoted up by 43.02 points or 2.47%.
Bank stocks were hit hard registering huge losses due to heavy selling pressure.
Selling pressure gathered momentum on the domestic stock markets largely due to meltdown in other Asian bourses, traders said.
Major losers, which pulled the Sensex down were Grasim Industries, HDFC Bank, HDFC Ltd, State Bank of India, Larsen and Toubro, Tata Power and Wipro.
Bucking the trend, country’s leading realty firm Unitech Ltd, which witnessed a free-fall in its share and plunged by over 51% on Friday, staged strong comeback after the company said it is seeking a probe by government and market regulator SEBI into its scrip’s fall.
Unitech Ltd stocks rebounded to trade 31% higher at Rs43.70 on the BSE with nearly 42 lakh shares changing hands in opening trade.
DLF Ltd, country’s biggest realty developer company, also regained strength on emergence of low level buying and traded nearly 3% higher at Rs213.90.