US sub-prime chaos pulls Sensex down

Mumbai, Aug. 9: Tremors from the US sub-prime mortgage market continued to pound the Sensex, even while the Asian market were up on Thursday. The Sensex was on a bounce in the morning when trading started and was up nearly 300 points. But then the slide started the afternoon as news for news of the story of the chaos created by the sub-prime lending disaster filtered across Europe. BNP Paribas froze two funds worth 1.6 billion euros.
By that time the Asian markets were closed and all ended positive. Most European analysts felt this was not the end of the story and there could be more uncertainties ahead. The Dow Jones was down 123 points at the start of trade and most European markets ended in the red.
The Sensex was down 207.83 points at 15,100 while the Nifty shed 58.90 points at 4403.20. On the National Stock Exchange there were 859 stocks that ended in the red and just 281 were up. The turnover was buoyant at Rs 73,255 crores with the F&O sector accounting for Rs 55,930 crores.
The Indian stock market bore the brunt of the bad news and operators battered the blue chips. Reliance was down Rs 33.65 and Reliance Energy was down Rs 25.25. Oil and Natural Gas Corporation was Rs 21.60 and Bajaj Auto Rs 19.85. The banks and information technology stocks also took a beating even though the rupee strengthened a bit.