Bloodbath on D-St: Amid Coronavirus scares, Sensex crashes over 1000 points, Nifty at 11,300

The Novel Coronavirus scare has now managed to hit stock markets. In the wake of the deadly epidemic, market benchmarks Sensex and Nifty fell at a remarkable rate in the opening session on Friday, leading to share analysts marking February 28 as 'Black Friday'. Investor wealth worth over Rs 5 lakh crore has been wiped off.

Sensex has plunged more than 1000 points and settled at 38,580.32 while Nifty, too, dropped more than 300 points to below 11,300. According to reports, all sectoral indices slipped between 1% to 3%. BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices down over 2% each.

This comes amid a massive selloff in global equities as rising coronavirus cases outside China stoked fears of a pandemic that could dent world growth.

All Sensex components were trading in the red, led by losses in Tata Steel, Tech Mahindra, Infosys, Mahindra and Mahindra, Bajaj Finance, HCL Tech and Reliance Industries.

In the previous session, the Sensex settled 143.30 points, or 0.36%, lower at 39,745.66, and the Nifty fell 45.20 points or the 0.39% to end at 11,633.30.

According to analysts, until last week the market was of the view that coronavirus was going to have a minimum impact on the global economy as the situation in China was being contained. But the increase in the number of new cases is changing the view and investors are worried about an intense slowdown.

Further, incessant selling by foreign investors is also spooking domestic market participants, traders said.

On a net basis, foreign institutional investors sold equities worth Rs 3,127.36 crore on Thursday, data available with stock exchanges showed.

Stock exchanges in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Seoul, and Tokyo plunged up to 4% in their morning sessions.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1,190.95 points, its largest one-day point drop in history, bringing its loss for the week to 3,225.77 points, or 11.1%.

The S&P 500 has now plunged 12% from the all-time high it set just a week ago.