Sensex Plunges 362 Points, Touches Its Lowest Since Announcement of Corporate Tax Cut Last Month

Mumbai: The BSE benchmark Sensex plunged nearly 362 points on Tuesday due to an across-the-board sell-off as financial sector woes, auto sales slump and weak macro data spooked investors.

The NSE gauge Nifty too tanked 115 points to slip below the 11,400-level. The 30-share Sensex, which opened on a firm footing, crashed over 737 points in late afternoon trade, before finally finishing at 38,305.41, down 361.92 points or 0.94 per cent. The gauge touched a high of 38,923.78 and a low of 37,929.89 intra-day.

The broader Nifty too underwent bouts of volatility before closing lower by 114.55 points, or 1 per cent, at 11,359.90. Yes Bank shares plummeted over 22 per cent, their fifth consecutive session of fall, as promoter Rana Kapoor and his group entities sold another 2.16 per cent stake worth Rs 510 crore.

Other major laggards were IndusInd Bank, SBI, Bharti Airtel, ONGC, Tata Steel and Reliance Industries — falling as much as 6.30 per cent. Among the Sensex constituents, HDFC twins, Mahindra and Mahindra, Maruti Suzuki, Kotak Bank, HUL and Asian Paints ended in the green.

The broader BSE smallcap, midcap and largecap indices underperformed the benchmark, losing up to 1.61 per cent. Sectorally, telecom dropped 4.53 per cent, followed by realty 3.88 per cent, tech 2.20 per cent and IT 1.68 per cent. Of the 19 sectoral gauges compiled by the BSE, 17 closed in the red.

Analysts said caution prevails among investors amid a deepening crisis at Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative Bank (PMC) and fraud allegations against companies like Indiabulls Housing Finance Ltd (IHFL).

The Mumbai Police on Monday filed a case against the former bank management and promoters of HDIL in the Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank case and said a special investigation team will be probing the case.

Continuing their fall, IHFL shares dropped another 7.05 per cent to close at Rs 237.50 apiece. On the currency front, the rupee dropped 22 paise to 71.09 against the US dollar (intra-day). Global crude benchmark Brent Futures rose 0.51 per cent to USD 59.55 a barrel.

The country's manufacturing sector activity in September remained unchanged amid subdued demand conditions both domestically as well as externally, a monthly survey said on Tuesday. The IHS Markit India Manufacturing PMI was at 51.4 in September, unchanged from August and thereby posting its joint-lowest reading since May 2018.

Official data released after market hours on Monday showed that the output of eight core infrastructure industries fell 0.5 per cent in August. In further worries for the auto sector and the economy as a whole, automobile sales have witnesses a sharp decline again in September.

Sales of Maruti Suzuki, Toyota Kirloskar, Bajaj Auto, Ashok Leyland and Mahindra and Mahindra have shown a significant decline during the month. Globally, Asian stocks closed mostly higher on Tuesday. Markets in China and Hong Kong were closed for holidays.

Investors are hoping that the US and China can find some common ground and reach a deal on trade and other issues during their high-level meet next week in Washington.