Sensex Slumps 988 Points As Budget Fails To Enthuse Investors
The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 indexes fell sharply in trade on Saturday after the Union Budget announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman failed to enthuse investor sentiment. The Sensex plunged as much as 1,092 points to fall below 40,000 and Nifty 50 index slumped 328 points to hit an intraday low of 11,633.30. With today's fall, Sensex and Nifty touched lowest level in over three months. Selloff across sectors, barring information technology shares, led to deep cuts in stock markets today.
The Sensex fell 988 points or 2.4 per cent to close at 39,736 and the NSE Nifty 50 index dropped 300 points or 2.51 per cent to close at 11,662.
"The Budget failed to address high hopes that market participants were anticipating from the Finance Minister to steer the economy out of the downturn," Vijay Chopra of Enoch Ventures told NDTV.
"Income tax benefits provided in the budget with riders have been disappointing. Hopes of higher disposable income in hands of people which would have driven consumption was not announced," Mr Chopra said.
"Expectations of a package in auto, NBFC and real estate sector which was not announced in Budget led to decline today," market expert Ajay Bagga said.
"Markets were complacent and too over-bought and we saw risk-off coming in based on global and domestic factors," Mr Bagga added.
17 of 19 sector gauges compiled by BSE ended lower led by the S&P BSE's 7.8 per cent fall. Metal, Capital Goods, Auto, Utilities, Power, Oil & gas, Finance, Bankex and Energy sector gauges also fell between 2 per cent and 4 per cent each.
On the flip side, IT sector gauge rose over a per cent as the IT companies will get benefit of dividend distribution tax, analysts said.
43 of 50 shares in Nifty basket ended lower. ITC slumped the most, the stock fell 7 per cent after the government hiked excise on cigarettes.
Tata Motors, HDFC, Larsen & Toubro, Zee Entertainment, Bajaj Finserv, State Bank of India, ONGC and Coal India also fell between 4-6 per cent each.
On the other hand, TCS, Hindustan Unilever, Nestle India, Wipro and Infosys were among the gainers.
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