Opening Bell: Market falls over 2%; Nifty slips below 15,900, Sensex drops nearly 1300 points - nearly Rs 6 lakh crore gone in 15 minutes

Tracking global markets, domestic equity benchmarks extended weakness to consecutive second day on Monday. The benchmarks opened lower by more than two per cent ahead of the FOMC minutes. The broader Nifty 50 slipped below 15,900 and Sensex tanked by nearly 1300 points to open around 53,200. The two indices opened at 15,877.55 and 53,184.61 respectively 

Following benchmarks, Nifty midcap and smallcap too dropped more than two per cent in the opening trade 

Sector-wise, bank, IT and Financial services were the worst hit as all other indices sat in the red in the opening trade.  

"The near-term market trend is weak. The May US inflation print at 8.6% against the market expectation of 8.3% is likely to turn the Fed more hawkish with a series of 50 bp rate hikes taking the terminal rate by mid 2023 above 3.5%. Such a scenario would be negative for risky assets like equity, particularly in the context of declining global growth," said V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

He was of the view that the Indian market will stabilize only when the US market stabilises. Therefore, investors may wait and watch till clarity emerges on the market trend, said Vijayakumar.

"One silver lining is the 7.1% increase in IIP which indicates that the Indian economy is doing well. Therefore, long-term investors can use the dips in the market to buy high quality economy-facing stocks like capital goods, banking, telecom and export segments," the expert recommended.

Meanwhile, investors wealth took a hit of nearly 6 lakh crore in the firs 15 minutes of the opening. The market cap of BSE-listed companies declined from Rs 2,51,84,358.86 to Rs 2,46,05,025.65 in the opening trade, a decline of 5,79 lakh crore.  

In the pre-open, the Sensex tanked by more than 1100 points (2%) as all stocks sunk in the red on the 30-share index.  

Earlier, all major Asian indices were trading deep in the red in early trade on Monday. SGX Nifty Futures, which hints at opening trade for the Indian market, was trading lower by whooping 320 points or nearly two per cent on the Singaporean Exchange in early Monday trade.  

Besides, Japanese Nikkei 225, Hang Seng Index at the Hong Kong Exchange and Chinese Shanghai Composite dropped 2.8%, 2.9% and 1.4% respectively.  

On Friday, the US market closed in the red in view of record inflation. Dow Jones ended lower by 2.7%, Nasdaq fell 3.5% and S&P500 2.9%.