Sensex down by 322.77 points

Mumbai, Nov 20 (UNI) The Sensex recovered 200 points from the day's low at 8316.39 on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today but still crashed steeply by 322.77 points to close at 8451.01 on weak global cues as recession worries continued to haunt the markets for the seventh consecutive session.

Sharp slump in the US as well as in Asian and European markets, due to cut in US economic growth forecast for 2008-2010 by Fed and weak housing data, weighed on Indian bourses.

The benchmark indices remained under pressure throughout the session, despite showing a bit of recovery in the last 15 minutes of trade due to short covering, a leading broker said.

European indices were trading weak. FTSE slipped 86.55 points to 3,919. CAC and DAX fell 104 points and 130 points to 2,983 and 4,224, respectively. The Dow Jones Futures was down 107 points to 7,920 and the Nasdaq dropped 22.25 points to 1,070.25. Asian markets ended sharply lower. Nikkei closed down by 6.89 pc and Kospi fell 6.7 pc. Hang Seng and Taiwan lost 4.04 pc and 4.53pc respectively.

Shanghai, Straits Times and Jakarta fell 1.67 pc to 3.10 pc.

Reliance Industries, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communication, DLF, ICICI Bank, Infosys, HDFC Bank, HDFC, BHEL, Unitech, Cairn India, TCS, L&T, Maruti Suzuki, Tata Power and Sterlite Industries were major contributors to the fall on the BSE.

The 30-share BSE Sensex opened low at 8400.88 points with a big loss of 372.90 points, after an intraday low of 8,316.39.

The 50-share NSE Nifty touched day's low of 2502.90 and high at 2634.20 points, before slipping by 81.85 points or 3.11 per cent, to close at 2553.15. Both the indices plummeted steeply in the last seven sessions, with the Sensex losing ground by a total of 2085.15 points and the Nifty index by 595.10 points.

Total traded turnover stood at Rs 48,668.02 crore. This includes Rs 7,788.87 crore from NSE cash segment, Rs 37,983.83 crore from NSE F &O and the balance Rs 2,895.32 crore from BSE Cash segment.

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