Sensex down by over 700 points

Mumbai, Sept 15 : The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) benchmark Sensex fell by 772.62 points this morning following the U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers filing for bankruptcy.

The Nifty of the National Stock Exchange also dipped below 4,000-mark by falling 242.40 points after banking stocks led by ICICI and HDFC Bank slipped sharply.

Realty stocks are among the worst hit. The Realty index has gone down by over 7 per cent. IT and power stocks have also plunged sharply by 5.25 per cent to 6 per cent.

Key stocks such as ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, State Bank of India, BHEL, RIL, Bharti Airtel, DLF, HDFC, Infosys Technologies, ONGC and Reliance Infra dropped sharply due to heavy selling pressure.

The serial blasts that rocked the national capital on Saturday also had adverse impact on the market sentiment. Investors looked unwilling to make any transactions in the prevailing market situation.

Stocks plunged to their lowest levels as investor confidence across the globe was shattered as the loss-making US investment bank Lehman Brothers stared at a potential collapse after Bank of America and Barclays abandoned talks of a buyout.

The rupee fell to 46 per dollar early today, its lowest in nearly two years, as a slide in Asian stocks raised concerns about further fund outflows.

Meanwhile, the Bank of America Corp said it agreed to buy Merrill Lynch and Co Inc in an all-stock deal worth 50 billion doolars, snagging the world's largest retail brokerage after one of the worst-ever weekends on Wall Street.

ANI