Tech stocks cause global crash, ripples hit Sensex

Mumbai: Breaking its three-day rising streak, the BSE Sensex on Tuesday fell over 300 points on heavy selling by market participants, in step with a global selloff despite strengthening rupee and easing oil prices.

Besides, profit-booking in recent gainers too fuel-led the downward trend. The 30-share Sensex, after starting off lower at 35,731, continued to slide as selling pressure picked up momentum and hit a low of 35,416, before settling 300.37 points, or 0.84 per cent, down at 35,474.

The index had risen 633 points in the last two sessions on the back of incre-ased foreign fund inflows.

According to Sunil Sharma, CIO of Sanctum Wealth Management, European indices opened lower as investors continued to monitor developments on Brexit.

“Technology companies had been leading the char-ge in the US and concerns about slowing growth and regulatory overhang, alo-ng with concerns around energy sector profitability, alongside rising interest rates led to the sell off in the US,” he said.

Markets are reacting to slowing US economic growth and all eyes remain focused on commentary out of the Fed, he added.

Paul Tudor Jones, a hedge-fund luminary who predicted the 1987 US stock market crash, said that he is “stress-testing his portfolio of corporate debt because he expects a tumultuous road ahead on the back of the Federal Reserve’s commitment to normalising interest rates and buttressed by corporate tax cuts.”

Speaking at an economic forum, Mr Jones said the Fed faces real challenges amid “the end of a 10-year run” of economic growth that many anticipate will soon come to a screeching, cyclical end.

Previously the US treasury department too had said that the biggest threat comes from elevated levels of stock markets and a bond market. that is sensitive to interest rates.

    — Agencies