MUMBAI: Jitters of counting day led the Indian indices to experience their biggest fall in the last four years on Tuesday with the investors losing nearly Rs 30 lakh crore in a single season.
As the counting for the Lok Sabha polls entered the final phase, Sensex closed 4,389 points down, or 5.74 per cent, at 72,079, while Nifty shed 1,379 points, or 5.93 per cent, to close at 21,884 on Tuesday.
Nifty Bank suffered a loss of over 4,051 points, or 7.95 per cent, to close at 46,928.
Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL), Hero MotoCorp, Britannia, Nestle, and Divis Labs were among the top gainers on Nifty, while ONGC, Coal India, and SBI suffered the most.
Except for FMCG stocks which outperformed on a poor day for investors, all other sectoral indices traded in deep red, with realty, telecom, metal, oil & gas, power, and PSU bank down more than 10 per cent each.
The BSE midcap and smallcap indices were down 7-8 per cent.
Experts said that the market, which had begun to price in a landslide victory for the NDA, witnessed a significant correction due to margin calls, as the retail investors were carrying heavily leveraged positions.
“Immediate support is visible at the psychological level of 22,000, below which the index might fall further towards 21,400-21,500. Recovery looks possible once the trend moves in favour of the BJP winning the elections comfortably,” said Rupak De, senior technical analyst at LKP Securities.
The unexpected outcome of the general elections sparked a wave of fear selling in the domestic market, reversing the recent substantial rally.
According to experts, despite this, the market maintains its expectation of stability within the coalition led by the BJP as the major election winner, thereby mitigating a substantial downside in the medium term.