Mumbai, January 24
The stock market turned weak on Thursday with the benchmark Sensex losing 372 points here after global concerns worsened amid France's second largest lender Societe Generale disclosing one of the biggest ever bank frauds worth over seven billion dollars.
After opening on a strong note and gaining close to 600 points in morning trade, the Sensex returned to its southward journey and settled 2.21 per cent down at 17,221.74 points after a volatile session.
Today's downslide made the yesterday's recovery short- lived when the Sensex had gained 864 points after a plunge of close to 4,100 points in the previous seven trading sessions.
The market breadth was also sharply negative with just about 14 per cent stocks managing to close with gains. Major losers included NTPC, Reliance Energy, Larsen and Toubro, ONGC, DLF, Reliance Industries and ICICI Bank.
Among Sensex stocks, only six — HDFC, Satyam, Reliance Communications, SBI, Bharti and ACC — managed to close higher.
The selling pressure began today on the domestic bourses on concerns that worries in the financial markets would only get bigger with Soc-Gen disclosing one of the biggest ever bank frauds in the world.
While Soc-Gen is itself a major
FII investing in India, the speculation that this development would affect investment from other FIIs as well, due to its major position in markets across the world, led to panic selling in Indian stocks, a broker said.
