Sensex tanks 699 points, Nifty slips below 10,850

Amid surging prices of Brent crude oil after drone attacks on Saudi Arabia’s crude facility, Indian benchmark indices Nifty and Sensex marked huge volatility in trade for the second straight day. The Sensex and Nifty have lost nearly 699 and 199 points to touch intra-day low of 36,425.05 and 10,804.10 respectively on Tuesday trading session.

India depends mainly on import to meet its demand for crude oil (more than 80 per cent of India’s oil demand is being met with import), thus rising oil prices can weigh on India’s fiscal deficit. Also, depreciating rupee as against US dollar is adding to the woes. The latest data shows that India’s GDP growth has fallen to 5 per cent for the period of April-June 2019 quarter from 5.8 per cent in previous quarter.

Out of 30 constituents of BSE Sensex, all the stocks were trading in negative terrain except Hindustan Unilever and Asian Paints. The biggest loser among the BSE Sensex is Hero Motocorp and Axis Bank that have tanked more than 4 per cent.

On NSE, Bank Nifty dipped nearly 2.4 per cent, followed by Auto and Financial Services index which have declined by almost 2.3 and 2.25 per cent respectively.