Asia trading weak

At 7:52 am (IST), Asian markets were trading weak. China's Shanghai Composite shed 0.80% or 20.95 points at 2,605.47.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng slipped 2.80% or 586.48 points at 20,359.66.

Japan's Nikkei fell 1.31% or 121.85 points at 9,178.03.

Singapore's Straits Times declined 2.96% or 88.75 points at 2,906.03.

South Korea's Seoul Composite was down 1.69% or 32.76 points at 1910.99.

Taiwan's Taiwan Weighted fell 1.14% or 89.40 points at 7,763.73.

Sensex opens below 17000

The opening bell on Monday reflected the sufferings of Asian Markets, which had broadly tanked 3% after the downgrade of US by rating agency Standard & Poor's. With Dow futures down significantly, most analysts were expecting a massive cut on theSensex. The benchmark Sensex dipped below the psychological 17,000-mark in the opening trade while the Nifty slipped below the 5,100 level. Technology stocks — due to their exposure to the US — were completely butchered with TCS taking a knock of 4%. The oil & gas heavyweight Reliance Industries opened 3% down and the Reliance ADAG pack were discarded like dirt by investors.

At 9:18 hours IST, the 50-share NSE Nifty was trading at 5,080, down 132 points and the 30-share BSE Sensex fell 457 points to 16,848.

Commodity related stocks too saw sharp knock. Sterlite, Hindalco, Cairn and Sesa Goa were down 4%.

Sensex closes 387 points down

Visible recovery in the last couple of hours of trade today saved the day for the Indian equity indices. TheNifty, which was at a 52-week low, managed to end the day at 5,211, down 120.55 points, led by bottom fishing and technical pullback.

Benchmark BSE Sensex fell over 700 points in an intra-day trade on the back of sell-off across the globe on fears that the US may get back into recession again. Major US indices Dow Jones,NASDAQ Composite and S&P 500 tumbled between 4% and 5% on Thursday.

Mark Matthews of Julius Baer feels that the next few days will be critical for global markets. The US markets plunged sharply, with the Dow down more than 500 points, in its worst one-day drop since December 2008. "There could be further global correction due to sentiment damage," he said.

However, some recovery in the European markets and US index futures turned good for the Indian markets in the last couple of trade. France's CAC, Germany's DAX and Britain's FTSE, which were down more than 3% in initial trade, were down 1-2.5% at the time of closing of Indian equities.

Market history: Top 10 Sensex crashes

Owing to concerns about the financial crisis of the world economy, markets across the globe witnessed a steep fall. On Thursday, 4 August, the S&P, Nasdaq and Dow Jones index dipped  4-5 percent on fears about the health of the US economy, and Indian stock markets like the BSE Sensex and Nifty were not too far behind as they opened lower by around 3 percent on Friday, 5 August.

Amidst all the  concerns, the 500-odd points fall in the Sensex is not as steep a fall if one compares it with the falls in the past. Firstpost did an analysis to check the top 10 biggest dives in the history of the Sensex (refer table).

2008 was a bad year for the markets as the Sensex reported some of its major falls during that year.

Order of crashes are in absolute numbers

• 21 January, 2008 — This day marked the highest fall in the history of Sensex as it declined 1,408 points on the back of investors selling owing to fears about fears that the US may be headed for a recession.

• 24 October, 2008 — Markets declined 1070 points to close at 8701 points as the RBI left key interest rates unchanged and lower the GDP target to 7-5 percent  for 2008-09.

• 17 March, 2008 — The Sensex crashed 951 points to close at 14,809 points on concerns about global markets.

• 3 March, 2008 — Major sell off by funds, budget related concerns and fears about the US heading for a recession led to a 900 points in Sensex to 16,677 points.

• 22 January, 2008 – Sensex declined by 875 points to close at 16,729 points. Trading was suspended for an hour at the BSE as crashed by 10 percent.

No respite for US, India will fall another 10-12%

By: Moneycontrol

As the market continue to suffer deep cuts served by the negative cues from the global peers, Gautam Shah of JM Financial says the pain is likely to continue and markets will bleed more.

He says both Indian and the US markets are oversold. Going by the mayhem on global markets, Shah says the trend across the globe continues is that of a downhill, though there maybe small pullbacks.

“We are working with about 16,000 on the Sensexwhich happens to be an important retracement level from a long term perspective, hence, another 10-12% cut is likely,” he says.