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Sensex Plunges Over 2,400 Points From Day's High, Nifty Sinks Below 8,450 As Financials Bleed
18 Mar 2020, 03:31 PM IST 
- The markets however recovered some of those losses in the least few minutes of trade. At 3:27 pm, the Sensex traded 1,389 points or 4.54 per cent lower at 29,190 and the Nifty was down 407 points or 4.5 per cent at 8,559.
- Selling pressure was visible across the sectors. All the 11 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading lower, with a fall of more than 8 per cent in the Nifty Private Bank index. The Nifty Bank, Financial Services, PSU Bank, Realty and Auto sector indices also crashed between 4 and 7 per cent each.
- Forty five out of the 50 shares in the Nifty traded lower at the time. Mid- and small-cap shares were witnessing the carnage in the markets as the Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 indexes cracked 6 per cent each.
- "Whenever this kind of correction happens, it takes 10-13 months for a meaningful bottom to be made. We did not see a reasonable correction since 2008 and one should not expect a recovery any time soon," AK Prabhakar, head of research at IDBI Capital Market, told NDTV. "Nifty can go down to 7,000 odd levels as well," he added.
- IndusInd Bank was top Nifty loser; the stock crashed 32 per cent to Rs 409 as traders feared about its high exposure to the telecom space. Bharti Infratel, Bajaj Finance, Grasim Industries, Axis Bank, Bajaj Finserv, Kotak Mahindra Bank, JSW Steel, Hero MotoCorp and Bharat Petroleum were also among the losers, down 6-17 per cent.
- On the flip side, Zee Entertainment, ITC, Yes Bank and TCS were among the notable gainers.
- Overall market breadth was extremely bearish as 1,930 shares were falling while 335 were advancing on the BSE.
- Equity markets elsewhere in Asia opened in the green. In Japan, shares remained in positive territory with the Nikkei 225 index gaining 1.47 per cent and the Topix index adding 2.17 per cent.
- Overnight in the US, stock market benchmark indices ended higher in a rebound after one of the ugliest days on record for the market in the prior session as the administration outlined some measures to combat the coronavirus fallout that were deemed positive by investors.
- The Trump administration proposed a $850 billion stimulus package to support the economy, battered by the coronavirus, and also considered sending Americans $1,000 checks within two weeks.