Mumbai: The emergence of new South African variant of COVID-19 and rising cases in Europe has sent shockwaves across the world’s top stock markets.
India’s BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty ended shapely amid heightened concerns over the South African variant.
The BSE benchmark Sensex closed 1,687.94 points or 2.87% lower at 57,107.15 while the NSE Nifty50 index settled 509.80 points or 2.91% lower at 17,026.45. This is the worst day for benchmark indices in the last seven months eroding investor wealth by 7.36 lakh crores as BSE market capitalisation slipped to 258.30 lakh crore from Rs.265.66 lakh crore.
During intraday trade, the Nifty dipped below the 17,000 mark to 16,985.70 while the Sensex slipped to 56,993.89 led by a selloff in realty, metals, banks and automobiles although buying in pharma stocks provided a bit of reprieve.
Among the global indices, all the European indices are trading with losses between 3%-4.20% while Asian indices lost between 1%-2.6%. Fresh fears of the pandemic will trigger equity outflows from emerging markets like India to safer options.