Sensex ends 1,939 points lower; NIFTY below 14,600
Domestic equity markets witnessed a strong downward trend on Friday, mirroring losses in other global markets. The slump comes as a rout in global bond markets sent yields flying and spooked investors amid fears the heavy losses suffered could trigger distressed selling in other assets, Reuters reported. Meanwhile, the GDP growth estimates for the October-December quarter of FY2020-21 will be released later on Friday.
The S&P BSE Sensex ended 1,939 points lower at 49,100. Separately, the broader NSE NIFTY index plunged 568 points to settle at 14,529. Notably, both the market indices ended around 3% lower for the week. Banking and financial stocks led the fall as the NIFTY Bank, Private Bank, PSU Bank, and Financial Services indices all plunged up to 5%.
AK Prabhakar—head of research at IDBI Capital—told NDTV, "Low interest rates made the rally possible from levels of 7,500 and the NIFTY has doubled from those levels in last 12 months. Now, signs of interest rate reversal are seen which means liquidity will dry up and easy money will not sustain." "NIFTY can go down 13,900 levels in the near term," Prabhakar said.
Evidently, the European and US stock futures were also in red. Eurostoxx 50 futures lost 1.7%, while futures for Germany's DAX and those for London's FTSE fell 1.3% each. Hitting a one-month low, MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan slid over 3%. This marked its steepest one-day percentage loss since May last year.
The National Statistical Office (NSO) is set to release the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth estimates for the third quarter of the fiscal year 2020-21 later in the day. As per several analysts, in the quarter, India's GDP will likely grow more than 0%. In the previous July-September and April-June quarters, the GDP had contracted by 7.5% and 23.9%.
