Sensex closes year on weak note, crashes 24% in 2011

The last day of the year 2011 was quite bad for the market, weighed down by banks, metals stocks, and index heavyweight Reliance Industries. It had seen some short covering today but the last couple of hours of trade turned tricky. It closed lower for the fourth consecutive session on Friday.

The Sensex fell 89.01 points, to close at 15,454.92 and the Nifty dropped 21.95 points, to end at 4,624.30.

The whole year itself had more disappointing reasons than positive news flow. Indian markets and investor sentiments were bouyed down by factors like 2G scam, rising inflatin, RBI's rate hike, disappointing quarterly results, government's prolonged divestment programme, lack of policy reforms, rupee depreciation and the unsolved European debt crisis among others.

The US economy too was caught in debt problems, however it has managed to clean off gradually.

Losing 24%, Indian market was one of the worst performer in 2011 while Russia, Shanghai, Brazil, Taiwan, Hang Seng, Nikkei, Straits Times and Kospi were down 11-23%.

Experts do not find any respite in the year ahead too. They feel the bearish trend will continue in the early part of next year too. Anand Tandon of JRG Securities said that the market sentiment is unlikely to improve in a hurry. Maintaining a bearish tone, he feels that no significant reform will be introduced next year.