Sensex Tanks 700 points, Nifty Near 17,400 Post Budget; SBI Crashes 9%

Bears gripped Dalal Street at the fag-end of the session

with financials, especially public sector banks, and metals, weighing heavily on the benchmark indices. The fall comes despite a populist Budget announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

The S&P BSE Sensex index was down 1,956 points from the day’s high as it fell 700 points to hit a low of 58,817.

The Nifty50, meanwhile, gave up the 17,400-mark as it declined over 200 points. In the broader markets, the BSE MidCap and SmallCap indices cracked up to 1.5 per cent.

Among sectoral indices, the Nifty PSU bank index crashed 9 per cent, while the Nifty Metal index tumbled 5.6 per cent. The Nifty Bank, Auto, Financial Services, Private Bank, and Realty indices fell over 2 per cent each.

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Global Cues

Asia’s stockmarkets steadied on Wednesday, with signs of a slowdown in U.S. wages bolstering hopes that the Federal Reserve could hint at an end to interest rate hikes at its meeting later in the day.

Oil prices climbed on Wednesday underpinned by a weaker dollar, which fell on signs of slowing inflation in the United States, easing fears that the world’s largest oil user may face a recession because of further interest rate hikes.Brent crude futures gained 20 cents, or 0.2%, to $85.66 a barrel at 0128 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures rose 34 cents, or 0.4%, to $79.21 a barrel, extending gains of about 1% in the previous session.

Tokyo stocks opened higher Wednesday following rallies on Wall Street, where US employment data helped allay concerns over wage inflation.The benchmark Nikkei 225 index was up 0.77 percent, or 210.57 points, at 27,537.68 in early trade, while the broader Topix index added 0.67 percent, or 13.26 points, to 1,988.53.

Major U.S. stock indexes closed over 1% higher on Tuesday as labor cost data encouraged investors about the Federal Reserve’s aggressive approach to taming inflation a day ahead of the central bank’s critical policy decision.

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