Mumbai: Thursday began on Dalal Street here with Sensex briefly crossing the historic 50,000-mark—to 50,184–on a euphoric note after the rise of world markets as the new US president Joe Biden took the oath a day before, and then took investors by surprise by diving 785 points, bleeding many of them.
The day began with a much-awaited feat of touching the 50,000-mark milestone on the S&P BSE Sensex. Soon, however, it turned into a nightmare for investors as a massive bloodbath washed away their wealth. Sentiment took a hit after a fire broke out at the Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII), the manufacturer of Covidshield vaccine under license from Oxford University and AstraZeneca.
The benchmark Sensex tumbled 785 points from a record high to hit an intra-day low of 49,399. However, the sell-off was quickly bought into control and the BSE barometer of 30 shares ended at 49,625 levels, down 167 points or 0.34 percent.
ONGC, Bharti Airtel, SBI, and IndusInd Bank were the top laggards on the index, down between 2 and 4 percent. Weightage-wise, profit-booking in HDFC twins, Airtel, TCS, ITC, and SBI dragged the index lower.
On the NSE, the Nifty50 index settled at 14,590 levels, down 54 points or 0.37 percent.
All the key sectoral indices ended the day in a sea of red. Nifty PSU Bank index declined 3 percent, followed by cuts in the Nifty Realty index (down 2.3 percent) and Nifty Metal index (down 2 percent).
The factors that propelled Sensex beyond the sentimental 50,000-mark for the first time included fresh optimism portrayed in the RBI’s January bulletin, released on Wednesday, the liquidity expansion by the central bank supported by FII inflows, a V-shaped economic recovery aided by the discovery of COVID-19 vaccine, and the western markets’ positive response to the swearing-in of Joe Biden as the 46th President of the USA.
The Nifty50, also, hit a record peak of 14,753 levels.
(VP)