Sensex crashes 884 points from peak to close lower

After trading with huge gains during the majority of the session, the benchmark indices ended lower. Sensex crashed 884 points from the day's peak to close Friday's highly volatile session 77 points lower at 57,200. The late sell off triggered mainly in banking and auto shares.

Sensex rallied to trade briefly above the key 58,000 level in afternoon trade before dropping to a low of 57,119, after starting off on a high note. The index closed 76.71 points or 0.13 per cent lower at 57,200. 23 was a highly volatile trade.

The nifty traded between gains and losses before closing at 17,101 or 8.20 points or 0.05 per cent lower. Maruti, Tech Mahindra, PowerGrid, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and SBI were the top Sensex losers, falling up to 3 per cent.

Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services, said: ''After the decent opening post yesterday's weak closing, domestic bourses staged a quick sell-off, tracking the weak European trend. Global sentiments were influenced by policy tightening by the US Fed and rising geopolitical tensions in Ukraine.

The broad market ended mixed, considering IT, realty and mid and smallcaps rebounded after continuous heavy-selling this week, he added.

The mid cap and small cap indexes of the BSE rose 244 points and 306 points, respectively. Bank and auto shares were the top losers with BSE bankex and auto indexes falling 326 and 166 points, respectively. The market cap of BSE-listed firms rose to 261.07 lakh crore.

The market breadth was positive with stocks ending higher against 1,417 stocks closing lower on the BSE in 1947. The shares of 94 were the same.

In Asia, the bourses saw mixed trading patterns, as Japan and Korea all logged losses.

The international oil benchmark of Brent crude fell by 0.42 per cent to USD 89.70 per barrel.

Foreign institutional investors FIIs remained net sellers in the capital markets, offloading shares worth Rs 6,266. According to official exchange data, there were 75 crore on Thursday.