Sensex plummets 624 points on global sell-offs

Bucking the overall downtrend, shares of RIL rallied nearly 10 per cent, capping the Sensex loss to a large extent.

BSE benchmark Sensex on Monday crashed about 624 points dragged by heavy losses in index heavyweights HDFC twins, Infosys, ITC and ICICI Bank amid sell-offs in global equities.

Bucking the overall downtrend, shares of Reliance Industries (RIL) rallied nearly 10 per cent, capping the Sensex loss to a large extent.

Apart from global concerns, investors remained jittery over domestic macro challenges amid slowing down of the economy and falling consumer demand in various sectors.

After diving nearly 700 points in the fag-end of the session, the 30-share Sensex settled 623.75 points, or 1.66 per cent, lower at 36,958.16.

It hit an intra-day low of 36,888.49 and a high of 37,755.16.

Similarly, the broader NSE Nifty slumped 183.80 points, or 1.65 per cent, to 10,925.85.

During the day, it hit a low of 10,901.60 and a high of 11,145.90.

Top losers in the Sensex pack included Yes Bank, M&M, Bajaj Finance, Bharti Airtel, HDFC, Maruti, Tata Steel and L&T, cracking up to 10.35 per cent.

On the other hand, RIL rallied 9.72 per cent to become the biggest gainer, after Mukesh Ambani on Monday announced plans to sell stakes in the firm's oil and chemicals business to Saudi oil giant Aramco and in fuel retail network to BP plc for Rs 1.15 lakh crore, and said its telecom unit Jio will begin offering fibre-based broadband services from next month.

Sun Pharma and PowerGrid were other two stocks that ended in the green.

Auto stocks plunged after SIAM reported that automobile sales in India witnessed its sharpest decline in nearly 19 years in July, dropping 18.71 per cent, rendering almost 15,000 workers jobless over the past two-three months.

"Markets have been tagging-along global markets in palpable risk-off sentiment due to multiple challenges of intensification of US-China trade war, sell-off in Argentina and Hong Kong markets," said Jagannadham Thunuguntla, senior VP and Head of Research (Wealth), Centrum Broking.

Asian markets ended significantly lower amid global trade war concerns and increasingly violent demonstrations in Hong Kong.

The Hang Seng cracked 2.10 per cent, Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.63 per cent, Kospi 0.85 per cent and Nikkei ended 1.11 per cent lower.

Photograph: Danish Siddiqui/Reuters