Sensex plunges 1,836 points; Nifty down to 22,512 as war, crude oil prices continue to hit sentiments

Mumbai: Equity benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty declined nearly 3 per cent during intra-day trade on Monday, in-tandem with an extremely weak trend in Asian markets due to the increasing tensions in the Middle East, which has entered its fourth week.

Rising crude oil prices, relentless foreign fund outflows and weakness in the rupee have also hit investors' sentiment.

The 30-share BSE Sensex dropped 1,972.77 points or 2.64 per cent to 72,560.19. The 50-share NSE Nifty tanked 636.35 points or 2.75 per cent to 22,478.15.

From the 30-Sensex firms, InterGlobe Aviation, Titan, UltraTech Cement, Trent, Bharat Electronics and Adani Ports were among the biggest laggards.

HCL Tech, Tech Mahindra and Power Grid were the winners. Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, jumped 1.24 per cent to USD 113.6 per barrel.

In Asian markets, South Korea's benchmark Kospi, Japan's Nikkei 225 index, Shanghai's SSE Composite index and Hong Kong's Hang Seng index dropped sharply. The Kospi dived over 6 per cent.

The US market ended significantly lower on Friday.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded equities worth Rs 5,518.39 crore on Friday, according to exchange data. Domestic Institutional Investors (DIIs), however, bought stocks worth Rs 5,706.23 crore. Foreign investors have pulled out Rs 88,180 crore (about USD 9.6 billion) from Indian equities so far this month.

On Friday, the Sensex climbed 325.72 points, or 0.44 per cent, to settle at 74,532.96. The Nifty edged higher by 112.35 points, or 0.49 per cent, to end at 23,114.50.