Sensex falls 600 pts, Nifty below 22,500; key triggers behind the market crash

Indian benchmark indices opened in the red on Monday amid high brent crude prices and negative sentiment in the Asian markets. Sensex fell 609 points to 72,514 in early deals today. Nifty too slipped 133 points to 22,466 from the previous close of 22,600.

Asian Paints, Infosys, Bajaj Finance, HCL Technologies and Bajaj Finance were the top Sensex losers falling up to 1.90%.

Kotak Bank, Sun Pharma, Adani Ports and Axis Bank were the only gainers on the 30-stock index.

Market cap of BSE listed firms fell to Rs 448.69 lakh crore. This indicated investors lost Rs 3.14 lakh crore in early deals against the market cap of Rs 451.83 lakh crore on October 23.

Meanwhile, India VIX rose 6.76% to 18, signalling heightened volatility in the market.

Hemang Gor, Senior Research Analyst- Derivatives and Technical Research, Axis Direct said, "Technically, the Nifty has breached its 200-week and 20-day moving averages. The undertone remains subdued below the 22,700–22,800 resistance zone. Immediate support is 22,500; a break exposes 22,200. Bias remains neutral to cautiously negative."

High brent crude prices 

The weakness in the market came even as brent crude prices held on to the $114 per barrel mark after falling from the six-month high. This fall comes after US President Donald Trump ruled out imminent military action against Iran, telling reporters on Sunday that “there will not be a strike today”.

Asian markets 

However, Asian indices slipped amid a selloff in tech and AI sector stocks. Nikkei slipped 280 pts to 62,413 and KOSPI was down 40 pts to 5512.  Among individual stocks, SoftBank Group edged up 0.35%, while Tokyo Electron declined 3.24% and Advantest slipped 1.67%. In South Korea, Samsung Electronics fell 0.70%, whereas SK Hynix advanced 1.41%.