Bears ain't giving up! Sensex cracks over 500 points, Nifty dips below 10,400

The domestic market cracked on Friday with the Nifty50 slipping below 10,400 mark as Asian stocks tumbled to two-month lows on Friday after Wall Street shares suffered yet another big slide in the face of rapidly-rising bond yields.

At 9:18 am, the S&P BSE Sensex was trading at 33,917, down 495 points, while the broader Nifty was ruling at 10,403, down 173 points.

In the broader market, the BSE Midcap and the BSE Smallcap indices were down nearly 2 per cent each. 

Market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was significantly negative. On the BSE, 1,296 stocks rose, 155 stocks declined, while 28 stocks remained unchanged. 

"At present, markets are undergoing much awaited (and required) correction. Thus, traders are continuously advised to remain light and avoid any kind of bottom fishing soon. For the coming session, 10,614-10,640 remains to be strong hurdles; whereas lower levels of 10,400-10,300 can be retested anytime soon," said Angel Broking in a research note.

Meanwhile, provisional data with the exchanges showed that foreign institutional investors sold scrips worth Rs 2,297.09 crore while domestic institutional investors bought stocks worth Rs 2,373.59 crore.

Global markets

Asian markets pummelled. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan dropped 2.3 per cent to a two-month low.

The index, which had hit a record high on Jan. 29, was on track for its sixth straight day of losses and stood to lose about 7.7 per cent on the week.

Australian shares lost 1.15 percent and South Korea's KOSPI fell 1.7 per cent.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng shed 2.8 per cent and Shanghai retreated 2.85 per cent.

US markets remained the epicentre of the global sell-off, with the Dow plunging 4.1 per cent and the S&P 500 sinking 3.7 per cent overnight.

With Thursday's losses, both the S&P 500 and the Dow slid into correction territory, falling more than 10 per cent from Jan. 26 record highs and showing that the dust was yet to settle from the slide that began a week ago.

US stocks began to wobble last Friday after a healthy US labour market report sparked a spike in bond yields and fears of rising inflation which could trigger more central bank rate hikes.

Higher yields are seen hurting equities as they increase borrowing costs for companies and reduce their risk appetite. They also present a fresh alternative to investors who may reallocate some funds to bonds from equities.

(With inputs from Reuters)