Blood bath was witnessed at the Indian Stock Market in early morning trade as the Sensex plunged over 1,900 points and the Nifty 50 tumbled below the 23,200
level. The continuous uptick in the crude prices due to the Israel, US and Iran war and hawkish US Fed commentary remained the key factors behind the market decline. At open, Sensex plunged 1,953 points at 74,751, while Nifty 50 declined over 580 points to begin the session at 23,198. Due to the heavy fall in the indices, over Rs 7 lakh crore of investors' money was wiped off in just a few minutes. The total market capitalisation of all companies listed on BSE, dragging it down to Rs 432 lakh crore. What led to the market crash? One of the key reasons for the market crash was thecrude oil price as it soared back above the USD 110-level due to the West Asia conflict. Further, the US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell announced the American central bank’s decision to keep policy rates unchanged as inflation is not coming down. Announcing the policy decision, the Federal Reserve had kept its policy rate unchanged in the range of 3.50-3.75%, and projected higher inflation. Another key reason behind today's market fall is the resignation ofHDFC Bank part-time Chairman and independent director Atanu Chakraborty leading to the crash in bank's share by nearly 8% in the morning trade. The development made investors jittery about management stability. The recovered quickly from the opening lows as it was trading 4.23 per cent down around 10 am. In the Indian market, the foreign investors also continued to offload equities leading to today's fall in the market. Foreign investors on Wednesday sold shares worth Rs 2,714 crore marking their 14th consecutive session of net selling. Further, the US bond yields also surged as the yield on benchmark US 10-year notes jumped 6.3 basis points to 4.265% while the 2-year note yield, which typically moves in step with interest rate expectations for the Fed, rose 10.2 basis points to 3.773%, as reported by the Economic Times. It's not only the Indian stock market, but the global markets also felt the heat as the Wall Street crashed on Wednesday. The S&P 500 declined 1.36% to end the session at 6,624.7, its lowest closing level in nearly four months. In the Asian market, on Thursday morning, Japan’s Nikkei tumbled around 2.5%, and South Korea’s Kospi fell over 1% while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng meanwhile was down 1.4%.
