Sensex slips below 16K, plunges by 566.56 pts

Mumbai, Mar 7 (UNI) The Sensex today plunged by a whopping 566.56 points on the Bombay Stock Exchange to close at a six month's low at 15,975.52 even as Nifty nosedived by 149.80 points to end at 4,771.60 on weak global cues.

The bechmark Sensex opened the session on a negative note at 16,211.96, with a loss of 330.12 points against its previous close of 16,542.08 and further dipped to below the 16K level to an intraday day low at 15,689.92 and shed 852.16 points in mid-afternoon trading session on extended profit booking interest across the sector.

Weak global cues and the rising inflation in the country with food prices soaring dampened the investor sentiments, which reflected in the local equity market today, brokers said. Inflation based on whole sale price index (WPI) hit the 10 months high at 5.02 per cent.

Meanwhile, the Indian Rupee had hit a nearly a six month low below 40.50 against the US Dollar.

All the sectoral indices on BSE ended the day in the red.

Reliance Energy was the biggest loser from the Sensex pack. Realty, power, bank and consumer goods stocks were the worst hit, which dragged the benchmark indices into deep red in second half, market analysts observed.

The broader CNX S&P Nifty index of National Stock Exchage hit an intra day low at 4,672.25, slid 249.15 points from its previous close of 4,921.40 before closing on a negative note in late trade.

Mid-caps and small-caps on BSE tumbled nearly 4.5 per cent to end at 6,804.39 and 8,409.18, leading the market breadth to a extreme weak end. BSE registered a turnover of Rs 5599 crore against Rs 5,363.43 crore in the previous session.

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