Sensex plunges around 250 points, banking stocks down

A day after it broke a six consecutive session losing streak, a benchmark index of the Indian equities markets, the 30-scrip BSE Sensitive Index (Sensex), plunged around 250 points or 1.00 percent during the afternoon trade session on Thursday.

The wider 50-scrip Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) was also trading in the red. It lost 81 points or 1.00 percent at 8,043.45 points.

The Sensex of the S&P Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened at 26,959.98 points, was trading at 26,592.32 points (at 12.30 p.m.), down 248.18 points or 0.92 percent from the previous day's close at 26,840.50 points.

The Sensex has touched a high of 27,000.14 points and a low of 26,486.61 points in the intra-day trade so far.

According to the Angel Broking, the Indian markets opened in the positive zone tracking SGX Nifty and its global peers.

Around 9.30 a.m. the Sensex had made gains of over 100 points and was trading at 26,944.14 points.

"The Indian markets reversed their downtrend on Wednesday for the first time in a
week. News of the MSCI (Morgan Stanley Capital International) EM (emerging markets) index deferring enlisting of the Chinese 'A' shares bought relief to the Indian markets," the broking firm said.

There was a possibility that India's weightage in the index may have been reduced, as a result of the entry of Chinese stocks and thus effect capital flows.

On Wednesday, the Sensex, had surged by around 400 points or more than 1.30 percent in the day's trade, after six consecutive sessions of losses.

During the intra-day trade so far, interest rate sensitive stocks like banking, automobile, capital goods, consumer durables and oil and gas came under intense selling pressure.

However, marginal buying was observed in the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector.

The S&P BSE banking index plummeted by 262.49 points, followed by the automobile index which dwindled by 173.27 points, capital goods index receded by 134.69 points, consumer durables index was lower by 106.80 points and oil and gas index fell by 54.03 points.

The S&P BSE FMCG index was marginally up by 0.32 points.