Sensex nosedives 516 pts after RBI's expected rate cut

Market benchmark Sensex plunged by 516 points today, most in nearly two months, to crack below the 25,000-mark as participants booked profits in lenders after Reserve Bank cut repo rate by 25 basis points, which was in line with market expectations.

Brokers said that no change in Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR), also had its bearing on the market.
Rate sensitive, banking, realty and auto stocks, suffered the most as selling remained unabated throughout the day.

Furthermore, weakness in the rupee which fell by 29 paise to Rs 66.50 (intra-day) against the dollar also weighed. Meanwhile, stating that inflation objectives are closer to being realised and price rise will hover around 5 per cent for the remainder of the fiscal, RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan reaffirmed that monetary policy will continue to remain accommodative to address growth concerns.

For the day, the 30-share index stayed in the red zone throughout the session and cracked below the 25,000-mark to hit a low of 24,837.51 after RBI announced its first bi-monthly monetary review for 2016-17. It finally settled at 24,883.59 after falling 516.06 points or 2.03 per cent. This was index's biggest single-day fall since February 11.

The NSE index Nifty after dipping below the psychological 7,600-mark, touched a low of 7,588.65, before settling 155.60 points or 2.01 per cent at 7,603.20.

Barring Lupin, all Sensex-30 constituents stocks ended in red and lost by up to 6.23 per cent.
Among rate-sensitive scrips, ICICI Bank topped the list by tumbling 5.45 per cent followed by SBI 5.38 per cent, Axis Bank 2.89 per cent, HDFC Bank 1.03 per cent and HDFC 0.07 per cent.

Broader markets were also lower with mid-cap index falling 1.47 per cent and small-cap down 1.40 per cent.

Among BSE sectoral indices, banking slumped 3.21 per cent, followed by auto 2.82 per cent, metal 2.81 per cent, capital goods 2.64 per cent, realty 2.59 per cent, PSU 2.36 per cent, power 2.10 per cent, teck 1.71 per cent and IT 1.28 per cent.

Overseas, Asian shares fell as yen's strongest level in more than 17 months dragged Japanese exporters. Nikkei plunged 2.42 per cent, Hong Kong dropped 1.57 per cent. However, Shanghai composite ended 1.45 per cent higher.

European markets, meanwhile, were trading lower in their early deals on slump in crude oil prices and weak German data.