Sensex dives 928 pts over fears of sharper rate hikes – Times of India

MUMBAI: As global markets prepared for a long fight with inflation with higher interest rates for an extended period than was expected till a few weeks ago, investors on Dalal Street pressed the panic button on Wednesday. As a result, the Sensex sank by 928 points, the biggest fall in the year so far. After a relatively flat start, the index dived deeper into the red and closed at 59,745 points, down 1.5% on the day with all but one of its 30 constituents – ITC – closing down.
A fresh selloff in Adani stocks, along with relentless offloading by foreign funds, also weighed on investor sentiment, market players said.

In the last two weeks, a series of strong economic data in the US, the world’s largest economy, have raised expectations among economists and analysts that the American central bank will again raise interest rates aggressively in the next few months. This has been weighing on investor sentiment globally which led to a nearly 3% fall in the Dow Jones and other leading Wall Street indices on Tuesday.
According to Siddhartha Khemka of Motilal Oswal Financial Services, while some of the key US macro data pointed towards a stronger economy, inflation continued to remain stubbornly higher. As a result, “there is an increasing fear that the US Fed may remain hawkish for a longer duration than expected, which may even force the RBI to keep interest rates high”. In addition to these, statements from both Russian and US Presidents led to some increase in geopolitical tensions, which added to the current uncertainty in the markets, Khemka said in a note.
The day’s slide also left investors poorer by Rs 4 lakh crore with the BSE’s market capitalisation now at Rs 264.6 lakh crore. Among the Sensex constituents, Reliance Industries contributed the most to the index’s loss, followed by HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank. The day’s net selling figure by foreign funds came in at Rs 580 crore, BSE data showed.

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