The Bombay Stock Exchange sensitive index crashed 230 points yesterday, following an all-round Asian meltdown in anticipation of the US Federal Reserve increasing its rates by 50-100 basis points.
The Federal open markets committee, the key body of the federal reserve, will meet on May 16 to take a final decision on raising the interest rates.
The Business Standard ICE Index of convergent economy stocks plunged by 8.45 per cent, or 18.77 points, to close at 203.25. ICE major Wipro was locked at the lower end of the circuit-filters at Rs 2,842.
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The meltdown shaved off Rs 30,514 crore to Rs 7,56,634 crore market capitalisation on the BSE in one day.
Mirroring the bearish sentiment, the 30-scrip sensex closed the day with a loss of 230.48 points at 4,463.40, while the S&P CNX Nifty shed 57.35 points to close at 1,365.05. However, foreign institutional investors continued to buy heavily. On May 5, the FIIs had pumped in Rs 187 crore.
According to fund managers here, the hike in Federal interest rates is likely to impact leading Asian markets like in Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong through the currency route. However, the Indian bourses may emerge largely unscathed due to their inherent insulation, some fund managers said.
On the BSE, frontline stocks like Infosys, Wipro, DSQ Software lost more than 11 per cent, while Pentamedia Graphics, Silverline, Zee Telefilms ended the day with a loss of 8 per cent. However, Aptech, NIIT and HCL Technology ended the day with small losses of 1 to 4 per cent.
Global Telesystems and Himachal Futuristic bucked the trend and ended the day on a positive note.
Global Telesystems gained10.85 per cent, while HFCL was up by 1.81 per cent over its previous gain.
Being the first day of the settlement on the BSE, the sensex opened higher by 50 points at 4,744.83. However, selling pressure nullified most gains, and the sensex closed the day on a bearish note at 4,463.40, which was also the intra-day low.
Other sensex heavy-weights like Grasim, Infosys, ITC, M&M, HLL, ICICI and Hindalco also ended the day with substantial losses, while Tata Power, Bhel and MTNL ended the day marginally higher.
Although it was the first day of the settlement on the BSE, the volumes at the National Stock Exchange were considerably higher at Rs 4,813.56 crore against Rs 3,756.40 crore on the BSE.
Of the 140 stocks traded in the forward group, there were 91 losers and only 45 gainers. Similarly, at the NSE-50 there were 33 losers and only 15 gainers.