Biggest fall in a year: Sensex tanks 430 pts on trade data,global cues

While the markets were expecting a correction on account of profit booking at levels above 20,000 mark after the recent rally,the news of a jump in trade deficit came as an unpleasant surprise. “Close to $18 billion trade deficit has dented the market’s hope that CAD (current account deficit) situation would significantly improve with the recent crash in prices of oil and precious metals,” said,Amar Ambani,Head of Research at IIFL.

“It came on the back of profit booking due to widening trade deficit and weak global markets,” said Alex Mathews,head of research at Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services. Selling was seen across-the-spectrum as all 13 sectoral indices closed with losses in 0.94-3.17 per cent range. While the FMCG index fell the most by 3 per cent,it was closely followed by the metal index which fell by 2.7 per cent during the day. The dip was,however,not as sharp in the mid-cap and the small-cap as they fell by 1.5 and 1.1 per cent,respectively.

All 30 Sensex-based scrips closed with sharp to moderate losses with ITC suffering over 5 per cent drop after recent rally. L&T,TCS,ICICI Bank,Tata Motors,RIL and HDFC Bank were among major losers. Bharti Airtel and Tata Steel fell by over 4 per cent each.

However,according to BSE provisional data,foreign institutional investors (FIIs) remained net investors during the day investing a net of Rs 244 crore.