Stocks crash to lowest level in 2 years

MUMBAI: The stock market cracked under pressure from the boiling global financial crisis, with the barometer index tanking 725 points to trade at its lowest level in two years as foreign funds left in search of safer investment havens.

The 30 share stocks barometer Sensex, which lost 529.35 points in the previous session, plunged by another 724.62, or 5.78 per cent to close at 11,801.70.

Funds indulged in selling in consumer durables, metals, capital goods and realty stocks. The Sensex touched the day's low of 11,732.97 and a high of 12,284.49 points.

The slide came even as the subprime lending induced crisis threatened Europe, prompting Germany to guarantee all private bank accounts worth 568 billion euros to prevent panic withdrawals. Questions about the effectiveness of America's USD 700 billion bailout package for its banks also negatively influenced the sentiment.

Analysts, however, said that the market may bounce back on Tuesday as the Reserve Bank and SEBI on Monday announced measures to ease liquidity and trading norms in derivative segment respectively.

The wide based National Stock Exchange index Nifty dropped by 215.95 points, or 5.66 per cent at 3,602.35 after dipping to a low of 3,581.60 during the session.

In Asia on Monday, China was down by 5.23 per cent, Hong Kong by 4.97 per cent, Japan by 4.25 per cent, Singapore 5.61 per cent, Korea 4.29 per cent and Taiwan 4.12 per cent. European markets also resumed sharply lower.

The market seemed to be bear trap as the main driver, Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) pulled out a whopping Rs 1,662.26 crore on October 3 as per provisional data.

Among Sensex indices, Sterlite was the top loser with a fall of 15.26 per cent followed by REL Infra 13.93 per cent, Jaipra Asso 13.57 per cent, Tata Steel 11.06 per cent, DLF 10.33 per cent and  Tata Power 10.15 per cent.
    
The trading volume dropped sharply to Rs 3,685.49 crore from Rs 4,801.25 crore on Friday. RIL remained the top traded share with the highest turnover of Rs 380.80 crore followed by REL Capital (Rs 244.10 crore), Axis Bank (Rs 141.14 crore), ICICI Bank (Rs 119.17 crore) and Tata Steel (Rs 117.75 crore).     

The broad-based BSE-100 index dipped by 390.96 points or 6 per cent to 6,123.81 from its last close of 6,514.77.
    
The BSE-200 Index and the Dollex-200 were quoted sharply lower at 1,423.32 and 500.62 at close compared to their previous close of 1,515.29 and 536.53 respectively.
    
Reflecting an all-round sell-off, all sectoral indices ended with a loss of 3.5 per cent to 11 per cent. The BSE-CD index dropped by 11.01 per cent, the BSE-Realty by 9.91 per cent, the BSE-Metal by 9.27 per cent, the BSE-CG by 7.27 per cent and the BSE-Power by 7.24 per cent.