Indian stock markets started on a negative note on Wednesday with Sensex falling over 250 points and Nifty slipping below 10,500-mark ahead of the third-quarter GDP data. The S&P BSE Sensex tripped down 269.94 to a day’s low of 34,076.45 whereas NSE Nifty dropped below 10,500, plummeting 92.75 points to mark the day’s low of 10,461.55. Investors are keenly awaiting the third-quarter GDP data for the financial year 2017-2018 along with the fiscal deficit in rupees for the April-January period, annual estimates for GDP FY18. Shares of the scam-hit PNB extended losses with stock plunging 6.5%.
The stock of Punjab National Bank witnessed a major jolt in Tuesday’s session when the state-run lender in a late-night notification on Monday said that the fraud amount may increase by Rs 1,323 crore. With such a huge rise in the scam amount, the total “unauthorised and fraudulent transactions” now stands at Rs 12,700 (approximately). The stock of dived 6.5% to a fresh 20-month low of Rs 92 on NSE, a level last seen 20 June 2016.
Shares of ICICI Bank, Yes Bank, State Bank of India, Tata Steel, Axis Bank, NTPC, M&M, Coal India and HDFC Bank were the major losers among the Sensex components diving up to 2.5%. A market-wide sell-off was seen in the Indian equities as all the broader and sectoral indices of NSE barring IT and pharma indicators traded in the red. Among the sectoral indices of NSE, Nifty PSU Bank, Nifty Bank, Nifty Private Bank, Nifty Financial Services, and Nifty Metal slumped up to 2% with the PSU bank index leading the losses.
Among the ‘A’ group shares of BSE, stocks of Vakrangee, PNB, Bank of India, IDBI Bank, Redington (India) were the major laggards shedding 3-5% while on the other hand, shares of Religare Enterprises, Biocon, Gujarat State Petronet, HCL-Infosystems and Symphony gained 2-4%. BSE Sensex lost 190.76 points or 0.56% to open at 34,155.63 while NSE Nifty started the day at 10,488.95, down by 65.35 points or 0.62%.
US stocks suffered on Tuesday their biggest daily drops since the selloff three weeks ago after comments from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell revived fears about more interest-rate increases than expected this year, Reuters said in a report. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 299.24 points, or 1.16 percent, to 25,410.03, the S&P 500 lost 35.32 points, or 1.27 percent, to 2,744.28 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 91.11 points, or 1.23 percent, to 7,330.35.