Heightened concern over US Federal Reserve rolling back its easy money policy earlier than expected rattled investors and triggered a panic selling at the National Stock Exchange, where the benchmark index plunged by 124 points and closed below the 6,000 mark today.
The 50-share index logged its biggest fall in more than two-and-a-half-month and touched multi-month lows.
Financial stocks bore the maximum brunt of selling, while FMCG, technology, healthcare, energy, capital goods, auto and metal stocks also faced the heat.
The much-awaited minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee's October meeting, released on Wednesday, confirmed that the US Central bank is likely to begin scaling back its quantitative easing programme "in coming months", sending shock waves across the global financial markets.
The Fed's stimulus programme, or easy money policy, had pumped billions of cheap cash in world markets, including India where bourses scaled new highs in the recent weeks.
Besides global factors, India is also battling domestic economic issues. Worsening macroeconomic outlook, widening fiscal deficit and rising inflationary pressure have raised fears the RBI may raise interest rates further, thus damaging chances of an economic recovery.
The Nifty hit a high of 6,097 and low of 5,985.4 before concluding at 5,999.05, clocking a steep fall of 123.85 points, or 2.02 per cent, over the last close.
ACC, IndusInd Bank, Sesa Sterlite, PNB, Ambuja Cement, HDFC, Axis Bank, NTPC, L&T and Asian Paints were the prominent Nifty losers. The only gainers among the index were Maruti and Cairn.
The turnover in cash segment dropped to Rs 10,386.73 crore from Rs 11,428.33 crore yesterday. A total of 5,540.83 lakh shares changed hands in 57,48,739 trades, while market capitalisation stood at Rs 64,73,347 crore.
