Mumbai: In the networked global economy, they expected it since the last weekend when a telephonic conversation between US President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin failed to dissuade Russia’s resolve to attack Ukraine.
The geopolitical breakdown between NATO and Moscow was also reflected in global crude prices, which are now above the USD95 per barrel mark, markets showed.
On Monday, the Russia-Ukraine tiff sent the Indian stock market in a tailspin as it saw its worst one-day selloff in 2022: Sensex nosedived over 1,700 points and Nifty descended to sub-17,000 levels, shaving off over Rs.5.15 lakh crores of investors’ wealth.
The Monday mayhem crushed equities, but the commodity market jumped with crude oil, silver, and gold futures rallying up to two percent.
In one of the worst bloodbaths on the bourses, the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex tanked 1,857 points intra-day, before settling at 56,406, and losing 1,747 points or 3 percent in the end, market reports said.
Likewise, the NSE Nifty50 plummeted below the 16,850-mark and lost 532 points, or 3.06 percent, closing at 16,843. The index hit an intra-day low of 16,810 before it recovered a little.
In the broader markets, the BSE MidCap and SmallCap indices cracked 3.5 percent and 4 percent, respectively.
Leaving investors shell-shocked, all the sectoral indices ended in the red with the Nifty PSU Bank index plummeting 5.9 percent, realty index 5 percent, private bank, financial services, and auto over 4 percent each, and pharma and IT indices over 2 percent.
Global markets turned volatile after US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan revealed signs of escalation at the Ukraine border and that Moscow could invade the neighboring nation even during the ongoing Winter Olympics in Beijing (February 4-20).
Shares in other countries also lost heavily. Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 2.23 percent, while South Korea’s Kospi declined 1.52 percent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dipped 1.5 percent, the media reported.
(VP)