Crude blow crashes Sensex

Mumbai: The attack on Saudi oilfields had its reverberations on the Indian stock market as crude oil soared to US $68-69 in the over-night market, and after falling 704.22 points, the Sensex ended Tuesday with a decline of 642.22 points to close at 36,481.09, a decline of 1.73 per cent.

In the 30-stock Sensex basket only three stocks closed in the green while the rest closed with losses in the range of 1 to 6.19 per cent. In the Nifty-50 only five stocks could survive the bear attack with gains: GAIL, Titan, Hindustan Unilever, Asian Paints and Infosys. The broader Nifty-50 closed at 10,817.60. The BSE mid-cap index fell 1.77 per cent and the BSE small-cap index fell 1.84 per cent.

“The rampant sell-off for second day resulted in erosion of last week’s gains,” Nischal Maheshwari of Centrum Broking said.

The Indian rupee touched a low of 71.97 against the US dollar. “Banks were impacted most while inves-tors are pessimistic as stimulus packages are not helping resurgence in sentiment,” Vinod Nair of Geojit Financial Services said. Foreign portfolio inves-tors were net sellers of Indian equities worth `808.29 crore. The selling pressure intensified as institutions were not buying and were on the sidelines most of the time with net buying worth `85.76 crore only.

“Oil prices remained near 4-month highs,” said IFA Global, which tracks currency movement. “Investor sentiment was spooked as oil prices are likely to hit economic conditions in India.” Auto stocks led the downside followed by banking stocks, said analysts.