North Korea fears, fresh loan defaulters list rattle India; Sensex sinks 362 pts

The market snapped four-day winning streak on Tuesday, with the Sensex losing 390 points intraday as geopolitical tensions between the US and North Korea escalated after North Korea’s fresh missile test over Japan.

Equity benchmarks wiped out 3/4 of gains seen in previous four consecutive sessions. The 30-share BSE Sensex cracked 362.43 points or 1.14 percent to 31,388.39.

The 50-share NSE Nifty closed tad below the psychological 9,800-mark, falling 116.75 points or 1.18 percent to 9,796.05.

Experts feel traders should refrain from creating aggressive fresh short as the Nifty closed just below its crucial support level of 50-days exponential moving average (DEMA) and is now stuck in the bear grip.

“The short term trend of Nifty is down and one may expect further weakness down to 9700 levels in the next few sessions,” Nagaraj Shetti of HDFC securities said.

According to him, there is a possibility of minor halt in downside momentum around the key support of 9700-9680 levels.

Dilip Bhat of Prabhudas Lilladher said this market correction due to global cues should be welcome by people who are looking for opportunity for buying.

North Korea fired a fresh ballistic missile early today that flew over Japan and landed in Pacific waters about 1,180 kilometres (735 miles) off the northern region of Hokkaido, northern Japan. This fuelled worries of fresh tension between the US and North Korea. Hence, US as well as China, Russia and Japan are closely monitoring activity in the Korean peninsula.

Global markets fell sharply as European markets hit six-month low. France’s CAC, Germany’s DAX and Britain’s FTSE were down 1-1.7 percent at the time of writing this article. Asian markets also ended mostly lower. However, investors turned their focus to safe-haven assets like gold that climed to 9-1/2 months high.

The selling by foreign institutional investors also continued due to geopolitical tensions. They sold more than Rs 13,500 crore worth of shares in August, the highest monthly selling since November 2016.

The broader markets recovered in late morning to trade flat but extended losses again in afternoon session, especially after sharp fall in Europe. The BSE Midcap index was down 0.85 percent and the Smallcap lost 1.02 percent on weak market breadth.
More than two shares declined for every share rising on the BSE.