Market Wrap, Aug 22: Sensex tumbles 587 pts, Nifty below 10,750

Markets continued to reel under pressure of the economic slowdown on Thursday with the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex and Nifty50 slipping nearly 700 and 190 points, repsectively from day's high to hit low of 36,391 and 10,718, respectively. Nifty Bank shed 800 points intra-day to close at the lowest level since February 2019.

Former finance secretary Subhash Chandra Garg, said at an event that the GDP growth could slump to 5.5 per cent in the June quarter of FY20 and better way to address the concern was through interest rate cuts. At the same event, chief economic advisor Krishnamurthy Subramanian, said that the government "could not intervene everytime a sector goes through a sunset".

The Sensex closed 587 points, or 1.59 per cent, lower at 36,473 with only 4 of the 30 components at the index trading in the green. YES Bank ended the day as the biggest loser, while Tech Mahindra emerged as the top gainer. The broader Nifty50, too, slipped 177 points, or 1.62 per cent lower, to close at 10,741-mark.

Sectorally, all the sectors ended in the red except Nifty IT index, which gained on the back of a weaker rupee. The domestic currency slumped 40 paise intra-day to Rs 71.96/ US dollar, its lowest level of 2019. Nifty Realty index closed nearly 7 per cent lower, followed by Nifty Metal index (down 3.6 per cent), and Nifty PSU bank index (down 3.5 per cent). The Nifty IT index closed 0.23 per cent higher.

In the broader market, the S&P BSE mid-cap closed 179 points, or 1.35 per cent, lower at 13,081 while the S&P BSE small-cap shed 271 points, or 2.19 per cent, to settle at 12,119 level.

The stock has zoomed nearly 100 per cent in the last seven trading days since the announcement of Reliance's plan of rolling out fiber broadband service. Since, August 9, the stock has rallied 97 per cent from the level of Rs 19.60, as compared to 1 per cent decline in the S&P BSE Sensex.