Market meltdown continues, Sensex drops 558 points

Another benchmark index, the Nifty, slipped below the 5,000-mark for the first time since June 10, 2010, in opening trade. It was trading 172.05 points down within minutes of the opening bell at 4946.45, its lowest level since May 27 last year.

After falling 1,322 points in the past five trading sessions, the Sensex opened on a very weak note this morning, with heavy selling in stocks like Reliance Industries, Infosys, ICICI Bank and TCS.

The Sensex fell to as low as 16,432.00 points, its lowest level since June 1 last year, with a fall of 558.18 points from yesterday's close.

The index closed below the 17,000-level yesterday for the first time since June 10, 2010.
The overnight meltdown in the US markets and the continuing downtrend in Asia this morning added to the woes of the Indian bourses.

Global markets have been in turmoil for the past two days after the creditworthiness of the US was downgraded by Standard and Poor's amid the American economy's mounting debt worries. The debt problems in Europe have already been hammering stocks across the world for about a week now.

Meanwhile, in the Asian region, the benchmark Nikkei-225 index of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, which closed at its lowest in nearly five months in yesterday's trade, lost another 3.73 per cent, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng plunged by 5.69 per cent in morning trade today as selling pressure intensified in the face of Standard & Poor's unprecedented downgrade of the United States.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, driven by a day of sell-offs, dipped by 5.5 per cent in yesterday's trade, the sharpest one-day decline since the financial crisis of 2008.

Brokers said the sentiment turned so weak that even buying by domestic financial houses failed to arrest the slide in stock prices.

"The market is flooded with nervous sellers, tracking the metldown in the global markets," said Manoj Choraria, a Delhi-based stockbroker, adding that even sizeable buying by domestic financial houses failed to put the brakes on the persistent fall of the bourses.