Mkt hits lower Rupee breaches 68-mark

Mumbai: It is free-fall for the markets on Wednesday fears of global recession and likely raise in debt defaulters. The investors assume that the China fears may lead to global growth slowdown.

Besides on the lines of severe sell off in global equities, the benchmarking indices breaches psychological levels, however, recovered by the closing.

Sensex closed with 418 points down at 24,062 and Nifty ended 126 points lower at 7,309. The broader markets underperformed with midcap and smallcap indices each reporting 2 per cent fall at the closing.

Meanwhile, the rupee touched a 28-month low was traded at 68.04 to the dollar in intra-day, following falling of crude oil prices, which raises growth concerns.

All sectoral indices closed in red with metals losing about 3 per cent following China weakness, followed by bank, capital goods, power and realty indices.

Heavy selling pressure is seen on bank stocks with ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, PNB, BoB and SBI have closed down between 1.8 per cent and 5 per cent.

The index heavyweight, RIL witnessed selling pressure as the investors were seen booking profits, the stock fell by 3.8 per cent, which had contributed most of the fall in the market.

The highlight of the market is that about 400 mid and small cap stocks were frozen as there were only sellers. However, the analysts suggest to their clients to pick large caps which are now available at discounted prices.

The value investor Ramesh Damani appearing on Biz channel said he feels optimistic about the market, which he claims moving extremely psychological and nervous.

The gainers: Bajaj Auto, up 0.43 per cent at Rs 2,276.25; Hero MotoCorp, up 0.21 per cent at Rs 2,488.05 and Wipro, up 0.07 per cent at Rs 542.15.

The losers: Adani Ports, down 5.53 per cent at Rs 219.55; State Bank of India (SBI), down 5.13 per cent at Rs 173.70; Reliance Industries, down 3.76 per cent at Rs 1,004.35; Coal India, down 3.45 per cent at Rs 297.95; and Maruti Suzuki, down 3.40 per cent at Rs 4,058.90.