Stock markets trip on Trump win, notes ban; rupee gains

A double-whammy hit the stock market hard today with the invested wealth taking a knock of nearly Rs 2 lakh crore on adverse global cues from Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential polls and demonetization of high-value currency notes back home.
Rupee, however, recouped all its morning losses to close at two-month high of 66.43 against the US dollar.
Gold appeared to be a gainer as an investment option with sovereign gold bonds and gold-linked Exchange Traded Funds gaining ground as key non-cash instruments.
The stock losses could have been much higher but for hectic buying at lower levels in afternoon trade, after the initial double-shock saw the benchmark Sensex plunging by a huge 1,689-points within seconds into the opening trade -- initially causing a notional loss of nearly Rs 6 lakh crore from total value of all listed stocks.

The Sensex finally closed 338.61 points lower at 27,252.53 points after recovering more than three-fourth of its early morning losses.
Sensex opened sharply lower at 26,251.38 points this morning and moved further down within seconds to touch a low of 25,902.45 points -- down 1,689 points from previous close -- with all 30 stocks in the benchmark index deep in the red.

The overall investors' wealth, measured in terms of valuation of all listed stocks, was down by nearly Rs 6 lakh crore in early morning trade from nearly Rs 111.44 lakh crore at the end of yesterday's trade. At close, the total invested wealth stood at Rs 109.61 lakh crore.

Shares of real estate and other cash-focussed sectors were hit the worst, while the major losers in the Sensex pack were Adani Ports, Hero MotoCorp, ITC, TCS, Bajaj Auto, M&M, Maruti, Infosys, HDFC and Tata Steel.
Cipla, Hindustan Unilever and Wipro also fell.
Among others, six Sensex stocks -- Dr Reddy's, Sun Pharma, SBI, Power Grid, GAIL and Lupin -- closed in the green with substantial gains.
The domestic currency opened lower at 66.70 as against yesterday's closing level of 66.62 per dollar at the Interbank Foreign Exchange market. It recouped the losses and closed at its highest level since September 8.