Indian markets witnessed a virtual carnage and suffered their second biggest plunge in the calendar year spooked by global jitters and earnings debacle with the benchmark Nifty tanking 228 points on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) here.
The selling was indiscriminate as all sectoral indices were hit hard and saw marked fall even as midcaps & smallcaps too hammered down out of shape.
A variety of factors, including a surge in oil prices and a slide in equity markets worldwide jolted by a vicious sell-off in sovereign bonds globally against the backdrop of disappointing US trade data triggering broad based panic sell-off with stocks taking a shellacking to hit multi-month lows.
Continued offloading by foreign investors amid retrospective tax worries and sluggish corporate earnings further dampened investor mood.
Trading commenced on a sluggish note and highly cautious mood with selling seen in select frontline stocks against the backdrop of overnight sell-off in global markets.
However, market turned extreme volatile in noon trade as sell-off accelerated after the benchmark index breached key support levels and remained under intense selling pressure till the end session.
The Nifty nosedived to hit a low of 8,083 before ending at 8097, showing a massive slide of 227.80 points, or 2.74 per cent, over the last close. It was the second-biggest one-day fall for the benchmark this year, after a 3 per cent slump on January 6.
As many as 49 of the 50-Nifty shares posted heavy losses.
Banking stocks bore the maximum brunt of the selling, with the sectoral indices Bank-Nifty tanking by 3.75 per cent. This was followed by Infra 3.61 per cent, Metal 3.19 per cent, Healthcare 3.03 per cent, fmcg 2.78 per cent, Auto 2.77 per cent, Energy 2.68 per cent and Technology 1.97 per cent.
The mid-cap and and small-cap tumbled by a massive 4.39 and 3.63 per cent, respectively.
Major contributors to the crash included ICIC Bank, L&T, ITC, Infosys, Axis Banks, HDFC Bank, Kotak Bank, TCS, ONGC, Tata Motors, HDFC, IDEA, SBI, Maruti, Reliance, Sun Pharma, HUL, Yes Bank, Indusind Bank, Lupin, Cipla, BHEL, HCL-Tech, Ultracemcom, Asian paints, Ambuja Cement, Wipro, Vedanta, Tata Steel and Bank of Baroda.
However, Bharti Airtel bucked the trend after MSCI raised its weightage in its India Index.
Turnover in the cash segment jumped to Rs 20,653.93 crore against Rs 17,218.56 crore yesterday. A total of 9,366.33 lakh shares changed hands in 83,82,109 trades. The total market capitalisation stood at Rs 9,632,994 crore.
