The banking sector led the fall in the market as there seemed to be no clarity emerging on the issue of waiver of farm loans worth Rs 60,000 crore and its impending benefits to the banking sector. As the benchmark indices posted their second greatest fall on Friday most of the sectoral indices also followed suit. Stocks of sectors which is likely to be affected by the proposed union budget were the worst hit.
Waiver of Rs60,000 crore to the farmers and unclarity in the reimbursement process to the lender banks took a toll on the Banking stocks. The BSE Bankex lost 6.72% or 679.29 points to close at 9,434.44 points. Punjab National Bank (PNB) which is supposed to have the highest exposure to the farm lending fell by more than 9.45% to Rs545.85 while State bank of India (SBI) fell by 8.83% to Rs1,923.40.
BSE Power and BSE realty also plunged by around 6.35% each before finally closing at 3,437.75 points and 8,953.95 points respectively.
Some profit booking was also witnessed in the BSE Oil& Gas and BSE Metal sectors as the indices fell by around 5.5% each to close at 10,422.11 points and 15,798.87 points respectively.
However, Excise duty cut in the small cars and bikes helped the BSE auto sector to be least hit as the Index closed at 4,848.05 points losing 39.12 points or 0.80%.
