October 24, 2008 - Bears are not giving any single chance to comeback and have weighed on the benchmark indices. The Sensex and the Nifty are struggling at the 9000 and 2700 levels, respectively. Banking, realty, metal, auto, oil and power stocks are taking huge beating on the bourses. Midcap and small cap stocks also plunged in line with other indices.

The negative flows has been continued at the FII desk. The long only funds are sellers across the Asia. Bank stocks are under pressure post the credit policy announcement, wherein the RBI has kept all key rates unchanged. Local players are selling their stocks desperately.

At 1:31 pm, the Sensex fell 822 points to 8,949 and the Nifty slipped 266 points to 2,676. The BSE Midcap and Small Cap indices fell nearly 6% each.

The BSE Bankex, Metal and Realty indices plunged 11-13%. Oil & Gas, Auto and Power fell over 8.5%. Healthcare and Capital Goods lost over 6% each.

Reliance Industries, HDFC Bank, SBI, ICICI Bank, HDFC, Bharti Airtel, ONGC, ITC, L&T, Reliance Communication and ONGC are top contributors to this fall.

Among the Asian markets; Kospi plunged 10.57% and Nikkei lost 9.6%. Straits Times and Jakarta fell over 7%. Hang Seng crashed nearly 6%. Shanghai and Taiwan fell 1.92% and 3.19%, respectively.

Sony Corporation and Amazon.com have cut their earning guidance due to lower consumer demand. The Japanese Yen rose 13-year high as against the US dollar.

European markets are trading sharply lower; CAC, DAX and FTSE lost 4-5%. Dow Jones and Nasdaq Futures slipped over 4% each. More