Sensex falls by 2,520 pts in 2 days, wipes off Rs 10L-crore

The bear mauling on Dalal Street has shaved 2,520 points off Sensex in mere two trading sessions. With fears of a possible invasion of Ukraine by Russia, inflating crude oil prices, and a correction in global markets spooking investors for the second day in a row, equity benchmark indices fell 2 per cent on Monday, in addition to the 1.3 per cent drop in the previous session.

Heavy selling was seen across sectors, barring information technology (IT) and pharma that fell only 0.25 percent and 0.73 percent. The Nifty Bank, Auto, Financial Services and Metal indices tanked 3 percent each. Fast Moving Consumer Goods and Realty were down more than 2 percent each.

Investors have lost Rs 9.57 lakh crore of wealth in just two straight sessions.

BSE market’s capitalisation dropped to Rs 258.24 lakh crore on Monday, against Rs 267.81 lakh crore at the close on February 10. Analysts said domestic markets opened sharply lower in line with negative Asian markets as also sharply lower US equities.

According to analysts, the short-term outlook for the markets is turning increasingly negative and soaring oil prices can further dampen the sentiment for India.

 India’s retail inflation accelerated to 6.01% in the month of January, breaching the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) tolerance band of 6%, albeit marginally. The surge in inflation print was driven by higher consumer goods and telecom prices along with a comparatively low rate a year ago. Inflation, as measured by the consumer price index (CPI) was 5.66% in December. Meanwhile, Food inflation too surged to 5.43% as compared to 4.05% in December.