Indian stock markets crumbled more than 4% during the week for the first time this year on account of aggressive selling action by foreign institutional investors (FIIs) and owing to China’s monetary stiffening and US banks rules.
China`s central bank announced a 50 basis points increase in banks’ RRR on Monday and US President Barack Obama projected new limits on the size and trading patterns of big US banking institutions on Thursday.
The other factor, which weighed down the overall reaction, was increasing food costs continued to descend for the third successive week.
For the week ended January 9, 2010, food inflation allayed to 16.81% as compared to 17.28% during the previous week. Index for primary articles rose marginally to 13.93% as compared to 13.82% for the week ago.
The 30 share index, BSE Sensex plunged 694.62 points to 16,859.68 for the week ended January 22, 2010. In contrast, the broad based NSE Nifty lost 216.2 points to 5,036 during the same period.
During the week, mid-cap stocks lost 266.75 points to 6,783.66, whereas small-cap shares dipped 309.29 points to 8,661.17.
The BSE Realty Index, which declined 8% accompanied by Capital Goods, which fell 6.51%, Oil & Gas slumped lost 6.06%, HC dropped 5.99%, and Power descended 4.53% were major losers in the sectoral indices over the week.
The top gainers in the Sensex included MSIL, which increased 1.64%, Bharti Airtel surged 1.31%, Hero Honda zoomed 1.18%), HUL rose 0.59% and BHEL arose 0.04%.
On the other hand, the major losers’ during the week were L&T, which dropped 10.83%, JP Asso declined 10.64%, D L F lost 8.45%, Grasim Ind fell 8.34% and Tata Power dangles 8.27%.
