Sensex tanks 2,700 points, Nifty ends below 16,250 after Russia invades Ukraine

Sensex ended 2,700 points lower on Thursday after global markets came under huge selling pressure amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Sensex ended 2,702 points lower at 54,529 and Nifty slumped 815 points to 16,247.

IndusInd Bank was the top Sensex loser shedding 7.88 per cent, followed by Bajaj Finance, Axis Bank, M&M , Tech Mahindra. All 30 Sensex stocks closed in the red.

BSE mid-cap and small-cap indices lost 1,301 points and 1,555 points, respectively. On the sectoral front, banking, consumer durables, IT and capital goods shares led the losses today.

BSE consumer durables index fell 1514 points to 40,950 and banking index plunged 2373 points to 40,547. BSE capital goods index lost 1172 points to 26,492 and BSE  IT index crashed 1551 points to 32,329.

Vijay Chandok, MD & CEO, ICICI Securities said, "While the escalated war situation between Russia/Ukraine has led to sharp cut in key equities across the globe, we believe crude trajectory will the key to watch out for going ahead. We don't expect major sanctions which may drive big spike in crude, equally harming Europe and US, or even in terms of aggressive rate hike leading to slower economic growth. We, thus, believe that market stabilisation is likely in the short term. We continue to see this correction as an opportunity for the investors to add on the companies with sustainable growth visibility."

The market breadth was negative with 232 shares ending higher against 3160 stocks in the red. 86 shares were unchanged. Market cap of BSE-listed firms fell to Rs 242.30 lakh crore.

International oil benchmark Brent crude rose 7.09 per cent to a seven-year high of $100.75 per barrel after the Russian attack on Ukraine.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) remained net sellers in the capital market, as they sold shares worth Rs 3,417 crore on  Wednesday , according to stock exchange data.

Global markets

Asian stock markets plunged and oil prices surged to nearly $100 a barrel on Thursday after President Vladimir Putin announced Russian military action in Ukraine.

Wall Street futures fell. The future for Germany's benchmark DAX index lost more than 4% and London's FTSE 100 was off 2.2%.

The Nikkei 225 in Tokyo fell 478 points to 25,970 and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong lost 758 points to 22,901. The Shanghai Composite Index was ended 59 points lower at 3,429.

The Kospi in Seoul lost 70 points to 2,648 and Sydney's S&P-ASX 200 slipped 215 points to 6,990.