Sensex plummets 318 points to fresh 19-month low, Nifty cracks below 7,500-level

Mumbai: The benchmark BSE Sensex plunged by 317.93 points Friday to hit a fresh 19-month low of 24,455.04 as muted earnings by some blue-chips and oil prices that fell below USD 30 a barrel combined to pull down the domestic equities for a second straight week.

The broader NSE Nifty also broke below the 7,500-level on across the board selling.

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For the week, the BSE Sensex and the NSE Nifty lost 479.29 points or 1.92 percent and 163.55 points or 2.15 percent, respectively. Previous week's performance was much gloomier at 4.68 percent and 4.54 percent loss for the indices.

Shares traded in the negative zone for most part of the day, but selling escalated in the later half on fresh rout in global markets and crude oil slumping below USD 30-mark.

Meanwhile, rupee depreciated in intra-day trading to hit a fresh 29-month low of 67.70 against the dollar.

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The BSE benchmark commenced the day higher and advanced to the session's high of 24,912.64 on value-buying in recent battered blue-chips and overnight strong rally in the US.

However, higher levels could not be maintained as selling pressure reemerged and the index slipped to a low of 24,421.53 before settling 317.93 points or 1.28 percent down at 24,455.04 -- its weakest closing since May 30, 2014. The gauge had lost 81.14 points in yesterday's session.

The broader NSE Nifty cracked another crucial level of 7,500-mark to touch a low of 7,427.30 and finally finished 99 points or 1.31 percent down at 7,437.80.

The losses largely came from realty, power, banking, PSU, infra, capital goods and metal stocks.

Hindustan Unilever took the markets by surprise with a 22 percent slump in profits at Rs 971.40 crore for the third quarter. Consequently its shares ended 2.70 percent lower.

From the Sensex, GAIL fell the most at 6.01 percent followed by SBI with a 5.64 percent plunge.

Overall, of the 30-pack Sensex, 25 scrips declined.

In the sectoral space, realty index suffered the most by falling 4.20 percent followed by power 3.88 percent, infra 3.87 percent, PSU 2.84 percent, capital goods 2.82 percent, banking 2.72 percent and metal 2.61 percent. However, IT index bucked the trend and rose by 0.07 percent.

In line with the overall trend, small-cap and mid-cap indices edged lower by 3.13 percent and 2.68 percent.

Overseas, Asian shares showed weakness with Shanghai index tumbling 3.55 percent ahead of the release of gross domestic product figures next week and Japan ended 0.54 percent, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 1.50 percent. Europe was also trading lower in early trade.