Carnage on D-street as Nifty plunges 4.78 per cent; Tata Motors and IndusInd Bank worst hit

Nifty closed below its 200-DMA for the first time in 19 months, turning the situation largely bearish

Market update at 3.30 PM: Indices saw an aggravated sell-off in the last hour of the trade. Nifty breached the 16,300 mark and fell about 4.78 per cent at the time of the closing bell. Sensex tanked over 2,700 points while Nifty Midcap and Nifty Smallcap plunged over 5.74 per cent & 6.25 per cent, respectively.   

Nifty PSU Bank, the worst hit among the sectoral indices, fell over 8 per cent. Tata Motors and IndusInd Bank were the top losers among Nifty pack. Only negative news inflow came from the Russia-Ukraine border and due to this, markets all around the globe felt the damage. Nifty closed below its 200-DMA for the first time in 19 months, turning the situation largely bearish

Market update at 1 PM: The impact of the heat of Russia-Ukraine war can be seen on the Indian indices. Nifty has plunged more than 3.2 per cent while Sensex tanked about 1,900 points. Nifty Midcap and Nifty Smallcap have also slipped 4.7 per cent & 5.18 per cent, respectively.  

With such a drastic turn of events, India VIX has soared over 30 per cent and is placed above 31. Media and realty sectors are the worst-affected while their indices have fallen over 5 per cent each.   

Nifty continues to swing in both directions and has hit the day’s high at 16,705.25 while the day’s low stands at 16,435.85. The commencement of war and airstrikes at the Russia-Ukraine border has started spooking investors, who are choosing safer havens like bonds & gold.  

Market update at 9.45 AM: It has been a horrifying start for the trading session as Nifty continues to extend its losses, plunging over 560 points or 3.26 per cent. Besides, Sensex has tanked over 1,900 points. 

Even Nifty Midcap and Nifty Smallcap felt the heat, which tanked over 3.65 per cent & 4.19 per cent, respectively. 

With this, India VIX has soared over 32 per cent and trades above 30. Panic has been witnessed among the market participants, who are waiting for signs of recovery.  

Pre-market update: Last night, the US markets were trading higher for the most part of the day; however, the latter half saw a severe sell-off and NASDAQ slipped about 2.57 per cent while Dow Jones tanked around 464 points. The sell-off can be attributed to the US officials’ statement regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine being “imminent”.  

Thus, the Asian markets have opened significantly lower, and SGX Nifty indicates a loss of about 350 points.  

Crude Oil is marginally down but natural gas is up by nearly 1 per cent while precious metals are also trading higher on Thursday morning.   

In the last trading session, the FIIs sold for about Rs 3,417 crore while the DIIs continue to support the market and have bought for about Rs 3,024 crore worth of equity.  

Ukraine has declared a state of emergency while Russia has started to align troops at the Russia-Ukraine border, causing further tensions.  

With such a huge gap-down on the expiry day, the panic is set for the first 15 minutes. It remains to be seen whether the benchmark index sees a strong recovery from lower levels like last Tuesday or not.