Sensex ends below 10k, crashes by 606.14 points

Mumbai, Oct 17 (UNI) The Sensex slumped by 606.14 points on the Bombay Stock Exchange today, plunging below the 10k mark to settle at 9975.35 for the first time since July 2006 on panic selling in all sectors in view of negative cues from global markets.

Asian markets were mostly lower as worries about a slowing global economy kept investors on the sidelines. The bears have latched onto the markets heavily in second half of the session and forced the benchmark indices to hit a new-2008 low on the back of Realty, power, metal, telecom, capital goods, oil, banking and technology stocks taking huge beating on the bourses.

Biggest losers were Reliance Industries, Bharti Airtel, Infosys, SBI, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, BHEL, NTPC, Reliance Communication, L&T, Reliance Infrastructure, TCS and ONGC.

The Nifty cracked the 3050 level as well and hit a low of 3046.60 in today's session, dropping over 52 per cent from highest point of 6357.10 on January 8, 2008. It tumbled 194.95 points or 5.96 per cent, to settle at 3074.35.

Total turnover was very low as compared to previous day. It stood at Rs 58,370.46 crore as against Rs 72,822.47 crore on Thursday.

This includes Rs 10,477.78 crore from NSE Cash segment, Rs 43,767.13 crore from NSE F &O segment and balance Rs 4,125.55 crore from BSE Cash segment. The BSE clocked a turnover of Rs 4,121 crore today as compared to a turnover of Rs 4,552 41 crore on the previous day.

Market breadth was extremely weak, about 885 shares advanced while 2103 shares declined. Nearly 200 shares remained unchanged.

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