Sensex tanks 400 pts as Fed set to reduce liquidity tap

Published: Thursday, June 20, 2013, 9:28 [IST]

The Sensex tumbled in trade today as rupee hit a lifetime low, following Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's comments that asset purchase programme in the US would taper off and come to an end, should the US economic recovery gather momentum. The Sensex was trading lower by 373 points, while the Nifty was lower by 117 points in trade.

Worries that the withdrawal of the stimulus in the US by the Fed, would lead to withdrawal of large amounts of foreign fund invested in Indian equities, saw stocks tumble in trade today. Over the last few years, easy liquidity in the global system has found its way into Indian stock markets, pushing indices higher.

Almost all of the Nifty stocks were in the red. Banking stocks were the worst hit with notable losers from the space being ICICI Bank, State Bank of India, IndusInd Bank, Axis Bank and HDFC Bank. Also battered in trade were stocks from the real estate pack with the top losers being Oberoi Realty, Unitech, HDIL, India Bulls and DLF.

IT stocks were the only stocks that were showing some form of resilience with Infosys and TCS trading only marginally lower.

Bharti Airtel was down more then 3 per cent on reports that the company slashed 2G data tariffs in Punjab, Haryana by 90 per cent.

Among non index stocks Tourism Finance rallied more then 10 per cent on reports that it was applying for a banking license.

Meanwhile, markets in Asia tumbled with most of the Asian markets including the Japanese Nikkei, Hong Kong's Hang Sang and the Korean Kospi trading deeply in the red.

GoodReturns.in

Story first published: Thursday, June 20, 2013, 9:28 [IST]

Other articles published on Jun 20, 2013