The markets and the economy brought bad news for the weekend with the Sensex falling 1.54% to its lowest close in more than a month, industrial production in June growing at its slowest annual pace in eight months and inflation inching up to 4.45% for the week-ended June 28.
Stock markets across the globe went into a tailspin on Friday. The subprime crisis and BNP Paribas? halting of withdrawal from investment funds, which impacted European equities on Thursday, hit the US markets, too. Dow Industrial Average lost 387 points.
This had a bearing on the Asian markets that began trading at a huge negative discount on Friday morning.
All Asian Indices, including the Sensex and the Nifty, suffered losses in a range of 1.5% to 4%. The biggest loser among the Asian indices was the Seoul Composite of South Korea, which dropped over 4%.
The benchmark 30-share BSE index lost 231.90 points to end at 14,868.25, its lowest since July 5, with 24 components falling. The index fell as much as 3.5% during trade to 14,570.89, its lowest level since late June. This is the third straight week the Sensex has posted losses. It is down 927 points from an all-time high of 15,795 points, touched on July 24.
The National Stock Exchange?s broader 50-share S&P CNX Nifty was down 69.85 points, or 1.6% at 4,333.35 points, on Friday. In the derivatives segment, the Nifty futures (August series) were trading at a discount of 1.4% at 4,303.
The loss in the BSE?s market capitalisation (m-Cap) on Friday was pegged at Rs 58,614 crore. The market cap has plunged from Rs 46.03 lakh crore on July 24 to Rs 43.85 lakh crore now.
Nikunj Doshi, head of equities at Kotak Mahindra AMC, said, ?Our market is moving in step with global trends. There is definitely more pain left in the system. We may see fresh money flows drying up and unwinding of leveraged trades as investors salvage money from other asset classes.?
The fall in the domestic market was led by Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), which lost Rs 31.25, or was down 1.7%, to Rs 1,810.75. ICICI Bank, the largest in the private sector, fell Rs 24.55, or down 2.8%, to Rs 865.7. These two stocks account for more than 20% weightage of the BSE benchmark.
The consistent fall also indicated that the rise in trading volumes did not lift the cash market turnover. The combined trading volume of the BSE and the NSE on Friday was at 96.16 crore shares against 90.39 crore shares on Thursday. The combined turnover of the BSE-NSE stood at Rs 16,509 crore on Friday. On Thursday, it was Rs 17,357 crore.