Sensex tanks 1,023 points, Nifty below 17,250; banking, consumer durables top losers

Sensex crashed over 1,000 points on Monday to close below the 58,000 level, led by sell-off in banking and financial stocks amid mixed global markets. Concerns over unabated foreign capital outflows also affected the market sentiment, traders said.

Investors remained cautious ahead of the RBI's policy meet from February 8. Sensex ended 1,023 points lower at 57,621 and Nifty slumped 302.70 points to 17,213.

HDFC Bank was the top  Sensex loser shedding over 3.5 per cent, followed by Bajaj Finance, L&T, HDFC, Bajaj Finserv, HDFC and Kotak Bank.

PowerGrid, NTPC, Tata Steel, SBI and Ultratech Cement were the top Sensex gainers, rising up to 1.88 per cent.

Of 30 Sensex stocks, 25 shares closed in the red. Banking

BSE mid-cap and small-cap indices fell 308 points and 222 points, respectively. On the sectoral front, banking, consumer durables and capital goods shares led the losses today.

BSE consumer durables index fell 684 points to 42,384 and banking index plunged 829 points to 43,562. BSE capital goods index lost 631 points to 29,041.

Gaurav Ratnaparkhi, Head of Technical Research, Sharekhan said, "Nifty had broken down from a rising channel on the hourly chart & had fallen below the key hourly and the daily moving averages in the penultimate session. As a result, it opened on a negative note on Feb 07 and witnessed follow-through selling. The selling pressure aggravated as the Nifty breached the near term support of 17400. The index is expected to form a base near 17040-17000 & attempt a bounce back. On the higher side, the junction of the key hourly & the daily moving averages i.e. 17500-17600 will be the key short term hurdle zone to watch out for."

The market breadth was negative with 1,405 shares ending higher against 2,101 stocks in the red. 144 shares were unchanged. Market cap of BSE-listed firms fell to Rs 264.84 lakh crore.

International oil benchmark Brent crude fell 1.05 per cent to $92.29 per barrel.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) remained net sellers in the capital market, as they sold shares worth Rs 2,267.86 crore on Friday, according to stock exchange data.

Global markets

Shares were trading higher on Monday in Europe after a mixed trading session in Asia, where the Shanghai benchmark jumped after reopening from the Lunar New Year holidays.

France's CAC 40 added 0.3% in early trading to 6,968.99, while Germany's DAX edged up 0.4% to 15,153.17. Britain's FTSE 100 gained 0.4% to 7,546.10. The future for the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.4% to 34,848.0. The S&P 500 future was 0.3% lower, at 4,477.25.

In Asian trading, Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 lost 0.7% to finish at 27,248.87. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 slipped 0.1% to 7,110.80. South Korea's Kospi declined 0.2% to 2,745.06. Hong Kong's Hang Seng was little changed, inching up less than 0.1% to 24,579.55, while the Shanghai Composite added 2% to 3,429.58.