Sensex crashes 928 pts, ends below 60K; Nifty near 17,550 amid global rout

CLOSING BELL

Stock market highlights: Concerns over hawkish central bank action, amid sticky inflation and resilient economic activity, fretted investors on Wednesday. Moreover, increased geopolitical tensions between Russia and the US, over Ukraine war, dampened sentiment. The S&P BSE Sensex slipped below the 60,000-mark today, falling nearly 1,000 points and hitting an intra-day low of 59,681.55. The Nifty50, meanwhile, gave up the 17,550-mark intra-day.

The indices settled at 59,745 (down 928 points or 1.53 per cent), and at 17,554 (down 272 points or 1.53 per cent), respectively. This was the indices' biggest one-day fall in a month.

The RBI and the US Fed will release minutes of their February policy committee meetings on Wednesday. While India's retail inflation accelerated to 6.5 per cent in January 2023, consumer price index (CPI) in the US rose 0.5 per cent in January to 6.4 per cent. With this spike in inflation data, it gives more ammunition to both central banks to stick to their policy tightening path. 

ALSO READ: Key reasons why stock markets fell on Wednesday

The weakness percolated to the broader markets, too, with the BSE MidCap and SmallCap indices closing 1 per cent lower each. India VIX jumped 12 per cent.

All the sectoral indices ended in the negative zone with the Nifty Metal index slipping over 2.5 per cent, the Nifty PSU Bank index 2 per cent, and the Nifty Realty index 1.7 per cent.

Market Heatmap

Adani Enterprises, Adani Ports, Grasim, JSW Steel, Bajaj twins, M&M, RIL, L&T, Wipro, SBI Life, Titan Company, Ultratech Cement, NTPC, ICICI Bank, Tata Steel, KOtak Bank, Tata Motors, and HDFC Bank fell in the range of 1.5 per cent to 11 per cent.

ITC, and Bajaj Auto were the only large-cap gainers, up 0.5 per cent, and 0.26 per cent, respectively. 

In the broader market, Adani Power, Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail, ACC, IRCTC, IDBI, Capacite Infra, SVP Global, Likhitha Infra, and Uflec lunged between 4 per cent and 11 per cent.

Adani Group

The market capitalisation of Adani Group companies fell below Rs 8-trillion-mark in Wednesday's intra-day trade, down from Rs 25 trillion recorded before the release of the Hindenburg report. In the past one month, the market price of Adani Total Gas has tanked 79 per cent. While Adani Green Energy, and Adani Transmission have plunged 73 per cent, and 71 per cent, respectively, the remaining group stocks have slipped in the range of 25 per cent to 60 per cent. The Group has repeatedly denied the accusations. In comparison, the S&P BSE Sensex has slipped 1.9 per cent during last one month. READ MORE