Sensex tanks 1.1k points on FPI exodus

MUMBAI: As expected, on Wednesday, stocks sold off for the second consecutive session since the war in West Asia started on Saturday, and sank the leading indices to over six-month low levels.

With the rupee weakening to a new lifetime low, crude prices hitting more than a year-high level and foreign funds selling aggressively, the Sensex closed 1,123 points (1.4%) lower at 79,116 points.

On the NSE, Nifty lost 385 points (1.6%) to close at 24,481 points. The last time Sensex was around this level was in early April 2025 while for Nifty it was around early-Aug 2025. On Monday, sensex had lost 1,048 points.

Together with Wednesday's four-digit points loss, the Sensex is now down nearly 2,200 points or 2.7%. According to Ajit Mishra, SVP Research, Religare Broking, during the day's session, investor sentiment remained fragile amid weak global signals, elevated crude oil prices and the lingering uncertainty around geopolitical developments in West Asia. "Continued foreign institutional selling and currency volatility further dampened confidence."

In Wednesday's falling market, although domestic institutional investors pressed the buy button to stabilise the heavy selling pressure from foreign funds, the effort was only marginally successful as India slid less than two of its Asian peers. During the day, while Nikkei in Japan closed 3.6% down and Hang Seng in Hong Kong was 2% down, the Shanghai in China closed 1% lower.

At the close of trading, while domestic funds were net buyers of stocks worth Rs 12,068 crore, foreign funds were net sellers at Rs 8,753 crore, data on BSE showed. In the last two sessions, foreign funds have net withdrawn funds worth a little over Rs 12,000 crore, translating to about $1.3 billion.

The day's sell-off also left investors poorer by Rs 9.8 lakh crore, with BSE's current market capitalisation at Rs 447.2 lakh crore. Since the start of the war between the US-Israel combine and Iran, in the last two sessions total loss of wealth to investors was a little over Rs 16 lakh crore, BSE data showed.

In Wednesday's market, of the 30 Sensex stocks, 27 closed in the red. Among these, Reliance Industries, HDFC Bank and L&T contributed the most to the Sensex's loss for the day.

In the broader market, there were 3,295 stocks that closed lower, compared to 1,025 that closed higher, BSE data showed.