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Sensex plummets over 1,700 points to close below 30,000; Nifty under 8,500

Sensex oscillated over 2,488.72 points before closing at 28,869.51, down by 1,709.58 points or 5.59%.

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Indian equity markets witnessed yet another sharp fall as Sensex plunged over 1,700 points on Wednesday amid novel coronavirus scare and tough stance by the Supreme Court on AGR dues of telecom companies.  

In a highly volatile session, Sensex opened over 500 points in but went down after that. Nifty too opened up by 150 points but could not hold on to early gains.

Indices ended at fresh 3-year low with Nifty ending 498 points lower while the Sensex fell 1710 points. 

The BSE Sensex oscillated over 2,488.72 points before closing at 28,869.51, down by 1,709.58 points or 5.59%.

Similarly, Nifty plunged 498.25 or 5.56% to close at 8468.80.

Sensex broke the 29,000-mark for the first time since January 2017 while Nifty breached 8,500-mark. 

The broader markets too fell in line with the decline in the markets. Nifty Midcap 100/Nifty Smallcap 100 indices down 5.5%/6.3%. All the sectors ended in red except Media which was marginally up 0.4%.

Private Banks and Realty were the biggest losers, down 6-7%. IndusInd Bank was the top loser at BSE, plummeting over 23%. Other banking stocks Kotak Bank, Bajaj Finance and HDFC Bank also ended in the red.

 PowerGrid and NTPC also finished significantly lower. ONGC and ITC were the only Sensex stocks that ended with gains.

India's volatility index (VIX) jumped 2.5% further to 64.5 levels, its highest in over a decade.

This comes as the number of global COVID-19 cases crossed 200,000-mark that has claimed over 8,000 lives. 

"Worries of greater disruptions in businesses rose due to the rising number of new coronavirus cases in India. Many states have shut restaurants, malls, gyms and movie theatres as a precautionary measure. Further, the Supreme Court held that no further objections to its orders would be allowed against Telecom’s AGR dues payable. Banks shares slumped as a collapse of a telecom operator could add to lenders' bad loan pile. Sentiments further deteriorated after S&P lowered India's growth forecast to 5.2% in 2020 amid coronavirus fears. Even FIIs have been brutally selling, having sold ~Rs50,000 crore in less than a month," Siddhartha Khemka, Head - Retail Research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd, said. 

Technically, there is no sign of reversal and we may see Nifty continue to fall towards 7,900 and then 7,500 levels. On the higher side, strong resistance now stands at 9,200 levels, Khemka said. 

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