Sensex dips 149 points as tapering re-instills capital outflow fears

Weak global cues and expiry of January equity derivative contracts also affected the market sentiment, pulling down the BSE benchmark to a two-month low. The Sensex resumed lower at 20,491.74 and continued to lose momentum to touch an intra-day low of 20,343.78, down over 300 points. However, some fag-end buying helped it halve the losses to end at 20,498.25 — a drop of 149.05 points or 0.72 per cent from Wednesday's close.

In the 30-share index, 19 constituents led by ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, RIL, and SBI declined. Sesa Sterlite, Hindalco and Hero MotoCorp were among the biggest laggards. The 11 Sensex gainers included Tata Motors and Bharti.

In five days, Sensex has lost 875 points from its record close of 21,373.66 on 23 January. On Thursday, it closed at the weakest level since 20,420.26 on 27 November, 2013.

Banking, realty, metal and oil & gas led 10 of the 12 BSE sectoral indices lower. Consumer durables and auto gained. Jignesh Chaudhary, Head of Research, Veracity Broking Services said: ‘Indian equity markets were burdened by Fed's decision to trim the bond buying programme by a further $10 billion. This resulted in weak trading in all the markets of the emerging economies and Indian
markets too followed suit.’