Worst weekly performance for Sensex, Nifty ever

10 October 2008

Markets have completely shattered and washed out on account of scary global cues and weak IIP data despite RBI has taken initiative to inject around Rs 60,000 crore liquidity in the banking system in the form of cutting CRR by 150 bps. This has been the fifth consecutive day that the markets closed on a weaker note. However, comments from Finance Minister and Sebi Chief has helped markets a bit.

Metal, realty, capital goods, power, banking, and oil stocks have hammered severely. Midcap and small cap stocks took huge beating on the bourses as well.

In early trade as well as in late trade, it was looking like the Sensex would hit lower circuit, but fortunately, it did not happen. Lower circuit for the Sensex was fixed at 1275 points and for the Nifty at 390 points. The Sensex tumbled 1088.6 points and the Nifty fell 314.7 points in an intraday trade to hit a low of 10,239.76 and 3198.95, respectively.

The Sensex closed with a loss of 800.51 points or 7.07% at 10,527.85. The Nifty lost 233.7 points or 6.65%, to settle at 3279.95. BSE Midcap slipped 334.48 points or 8.34% at 3,676 and the Small Cap index was down by 343.74 points or 7.31% at 4,355.45.

This has been the worst weekly performance for the Sensex and Nifty ever. The Sensex ended down by 15.5% or 1950 points and the Nifty closed down by 14% or 550 points at day's low. All sectoral indices fell over 10% this week; BSE Metal and Capital Goods indices were down over 20%. Among the heavyweights, Reliance Industries was down 13%, ONGC down 10% and Bharti Airtel down 9%. Among the index losers, Suzlon tumbled 36% followed by Reliance Infrastructure and Reliance Communication, which fell 30% each.

The August Index of Industrial Production (IIP) numbers came in at 1.3% versus 10.9% year-on-year (YoY), which was much lower than CNBC-TV18 expectations of 5.79%. Manufacturing growth for August stood at 1.1% versus 10.7% YoY, and the consumer durables growth for the period has come in at 5.1% against 6.2%. Capital Goods growth was at 2.3% versus 30.8% and Mining growth declined to 4% from 14.7%.