Mumbai, Aug 5 (IANS) Fears of a double-dip recession in US markets, which triggered the worst fall in over two years at Wall Street Thursday, led to panic selling at Indian bourses Friday with benchmark indices for Indian equities closing more than 2 percent lower after recouping some of the intra-day losses.


The fall in US markets Thursday was the worst since December 2008. Indices at Wall Street are down about 10 percent in the past 10 days.

The 30-scrip sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened at 17,350.37 points, closed at 17,305.87 points, down 387.31 points or 2.19 percent from its previous close at 17,693.18 points.

It had fallen over 700 points, below the 17,000 mark in intra-day trade.

“Indian markets have corrected sharply, largely in line with the fall in the US and European markets. For the week, our markets are down by about 5 percent largely on global concerns," said Dipen Shah, senior vice president, private client group research, Kotak Securities.

"Needless to say, the markets could remain weak in short term and will move in line with the global markets and fund flows, which could be negative for all emerging markets," he added.

The 50-scrip S&P CNX Nifty of the National Stock Exchange also ended deep in the red at 5,211.25 points, down 2.26 percent.

Broader markets too saw a sell-off. The BSE midcap index ended 2.16 percent down and the BSE smallcap index was closed 3.08 percent down.

The market breadth was negative with only 556 stocks advancing compared to 2,365 scrips declining and 68 remaining unchanged.

Twenty three stocks on the 30-scrip Sensex ended in the red.

Among the three gainers were ONGC, up 1.08 percent at Rs.276.10; Hindalco, up 0.77 percent at Rs.162.85 and Cipla, up 0.73 percent at Rs.308.40.

In other major Asian markets, things were no different. The benchmark Japanese Nikkei closed 3.72 percent lower at 9,299.88 points.

The Chinese Shanghai Composite index ended 2.15 percent lower at 2,626.42 points, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng closed with a huge 4.29 percent loss at 20,946.14 points.

European markets too were ruling lower.

Britain's FTSE 100 was ruling 2.55 percent down at 5,255.43 points, and the French CAC 40 was ruling 0.78 percent lower at 3,294.29 points.

The German DAX was 2.25 percent down at 6,270.71 points.