Sensex tanks 1,400 points as new South Africa Covid variant spooks global markets

Sensex crashed over 1,400 points on Friday as rising cases of a new coronavirus variant in South Africa spooked global markets. A surge in coronavirus cases in Europe also weakened global market sentiment.

The 30-stock index lost 1,488 points to 57,307 against the previous close of 58,795. Nifty lost 408 points to 17,127.
Earlier,  Sensex opened lower amid weak global cues. At 9:16 am, Sensex declined over 700 points to 58,072.66 and Nifty slipped 223.9 points to 17,312.40.

Of 30 Sensex stocks, two were trading in the green in afternoon session.

Tata Steel, Maruti, Bajaj Finance, IndusInd Bank and HDFC were the top Sensex losers, falling up to 3.95%.  

Dr Reddy's, TCS and Nestle India were the only Sensex gainers, rising up to 3.52%.

BSE mid-cap and small-cap indices crashed 544 points and 384 points, respectively.

Consumer durables, banking, auto and metal shares led the losses today. BSE consumer durables, banking, metal and auto indices fell 986 points, 1,080 points, 612 points and 747 points respectively.

BSE healthcare index was the sole gainer among 19 BSE sectoral indices, rising 449 points to 25,778.

Market cap of the BSE-listed firms fell to Rs 261.26 lakh crore today. The market breadth was negative with 1024 shares trading higher against 2,114 stocks in the red. 135 shares were unchanged.

Global markets

The Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.4% to 3,569.86 and the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo plunged by an unusually wide 2.5% margin to 28,779.03. The Hang Seng in Hong Kong tumbled 1.9% to 24,260.94.

The Kospi in Seoul lost 1% to 2,949.71 and Sydney’s S&P-ASX 200 fell to 7,301.90. New Zealand and Southeast Asian markets also declined.