Stock market turmoil Sensex crashes 1,050 points investors lose Rs 5.5 lakh crore

Mumbai (The Uttam Hindu): The Indian stock market witnessed intense selling pressure on Friday. It was as if an earthquake had struck Dalal Street on the last trading day of the week. The Sensex plummeted by nearly 1,050 points, falling to 81,159, while the Nifty also tumbled by more than 300 points, slipping below the crucial 25,200 level. This widespread selling has dealt a severe blow to investors, who lost over ₹5.5 lakh crore in just a few hours.

FMCG and auto sectors have been hit hard.

The market continued to fall for the second consecutive session, mainly due to heavy selling in the shares of FMCG, auto, realty and pharma sectors. Due to this unprecedented pressure, the total market capitalization of all the companies listed on BSE has come down to around Rs 463 lakh crore. Shares of Sun Pharma, Mahindra & Mahindra, Bharti Airtel and Bajaj Finserv suffered the biggest losses on the Sensex. On the other hand, only the shares of IT sector giants like Infosys and HCL Tech along with Trent were able to make gains initially, but later companies like TCS also lost their profits and went into the red.

Market sentiment deteriorated due to profit booking by foreign investors.

A major reason for this sharp decline in the stock market is believed to be the continuous selling by foreign institutional investors (FIIs). According to data from the National Stock Exchange (NSE), foreign investors sold Indian shares worth approximately ₹3,466 crore a day earlier. However, amid this panic, domestic institutional investors (DIIs) attempted to stabilize the market and bought shares worth ₹5,032 crore, but this effort proved insufficient to stop the market from falling in the face of widespread selling.

Weak global cues and the impact of US-Iran tensions

Along with domestic factors, disappointing signals from global markets have also had a negative impact on the Indian market. On Wall Street, the Nasdaq index, full of tech stocks, closed with a decline, where major stocks like the world's most valuable company Nvidia, Google's parent company Alphabet, Amazon and AMD saw a huge decline. Apart from this, at the international level, the increasing tension between America and Iran regarding the nuclear program has also increased the concerns of investors. There is an atmosphere of fear among global investors after the warning of military action by US President Donald Trump. Along with this, the weakness of the Indian rupee against the US dollar has also weakened the market sentiment.