New Delhi: The Indian market was trading at a 14-month low on Monday as spooked investors fled Dalal Street looking for a safe haven. On the first day of trade post rating agency S&P's downgrade of the US to AA+ from AAA, Nifty fell below the 5100 level. Rest of Asia was coping with a 2-4 per cent cut.
The 30-share BSE Sensex was trading at 16,850, down 455 points and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 133 points to 5,078.
In the largecap space, Wipro, TCS, Tata Motors, Infosys, Tata Steel and HCL Tech were down between 4.5 per cent and 7 per cent.
There were two stocks that had refused to join the falling rally. GAIL and BPCL, both from the oil & gas space, gained 0.5 per cent rejoicing a fall in crude oil prices. Brent crude slipped 3 per cent to $ 106.5 a barrel.
Reliance Industries, SBI, Tata Steel, L&T, Infosys and TCS were the most active shares on exchanges.
Earlier, the opening bell on Monday reflected the sufferings of Asian Markets, which had broadly tanked 3 per cent. The benchmark Sensex dipped below the psychological 17,000-mark in the opening trade while the Nifty slipped below the 5,100 level. Technology stocks were completely butchered with TCS taking a knock of 4 per cent. The oil & gas heavyweight Reliance Industries opened 3 per cent down and the Reliance ADAG pack were discarded like dirt by investors.
Commodity related stocks too saw sharp knock. Sterlite, Hindalco, Cairn and Sesa Goa were down 4 per cent.
HUL, DLF, Bharti Airtel, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank tumbled 3 per cent.
Engineering stocks BHEL and L&T declined over 1 per cent.
The CNX Midcap slipped 201 points to 7,490. About 51 shares advanced as against 873 shares declined on NSE.
Global cues
Asian markets like Shanghai, Hang Seng and Straits Times fell nearly 4 per cent. Kospi and Taiwan lost nearly 3 per cent. Nikkei was down over 1 per cent.