Market mayhem: Nearly 400 stocks hit 52-week low

Mumbai: Market mayhem Thursday pulled down nearly 400 stocks to their respective one-year low levels on the BSE, with the benchmark Sensex nosediving over 800 points.

Marking the eighth biggest single-day fall, the Sensex closed 807.07 points down at 22,951.83 - a new low for the index and the lowest since May 8, 2014.

Stocks that hit their 52-week low include Adani Ports, Allahabad Bank, BHEL, Cipla, DLF, HDFC, ICICI Bank, Jindal Steel & Power, PNB, SAIL, State Bank of India, Suzlon Energy, Tata Motors and Tata Consultancy Services, taking the total to 394.

The Sensex has come off more than 23 percent from its all-time peak of over 30,000, scaled nearly a year ago on March 4, 2015.

In today's session itself, the total investor wealth - measured in terms of cumulative value of all listed stocks on BSE - slumped by over Rs 3 lakh crore - taking the total loss since start of the week to nearly Rs 7 lakh crore.

Since the all-time peak, the total investors' wealth has come down by close to Rs 20 lakh crore and now stands at about Rs 86 lakh crore.

"Relentless selling in the stock market is coming from redemption pressures, margin calls, crude slumping to multi- year lows, depreciating rupee against dollar and disappointing earnings," said Gaurav Jain, Director of Hem Securities.

The rout was so deep that 25 stocks fell by more than 2 percent on the benchmark index.

Major losers were Adani Ports, BHEL, Tata Motors, ONGC, M&M and Tata Steel.

Among the sectoral indices, realty fell the most.

Small-cap and mid-cap indices also fell by 4.64 percent and 3.27 percent respectively.