Investors also turned jittery a day after Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Urjit Patel resigned.
Stock, currency and bond markets plunged in morning trade today as counting of votes cast in assembly elections in five states was underway.
The shock exit of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Urjit Patel on Monday also spooked the markets.
The SP BSE Sensex lost as much as 533.43 points and the Nifty50 barometer of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) sank as much as 154.6 points before recovering some of those losses.
The rupee plunged by a significant 110 paise and the bond prices fell, according to a report by news agency Press Trust of India.
Here are 10 things you should know about stock, currency and bond markets today:At the time of writing this report, the Sensex traded at 34,621.74, down 337.98 points or 0.97 per cent and the Nifty50 was at 10,390.40, down 98.05 points or 0.93 per cent from the previous close.The Sensex and Nifty had touched intraday lows of 34,426.29 and 10,333.85 earlier during Monday's session.Thirty five out of 50 Nifty stocks traded lower.Trading down between 1.77 per cent and 2.78 per cent, IndusInd Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, HDFC and Reliance Industries were among the laggards on the 50-scrip index.Financials, banks, metals, and auto stocks were the top drags on the NSE."The markets are already in a down trend.
They have discounted a 3-0 white wash.
If even one state goes the BJP way, it will result in short-covering," said VK Sharma, head PCG and capital markets strategy, HDFC Securities.The rupee dropped 1.5 per cent to a one-month low of 72.4650 per dollar in early trade, but pared some losses to trade at 72.24 by 0453 GMT or 10:23 am versus its previous close of 71.35, reported news agency Reuters.The benchmark 10-year bond yield was at 7.65 per cent versus 7.59 per cent at the previous close after initially rising as high as 7.71 per cent.On the RBI governor's exit, forex advisory firm IFA Global said, "This has dampened risk sentiment onshore as questions arise again about friction between the government and the RBI, the ones which were believed to have been quelled after the 19th November board meetFPIs (foreign portfolio investors) are likely to take this extremely negatively and we could see a selloff in debt and equities."In global markets, Chinese shares pulled ahead after Beijing confirmed it was still in trade talks with the United States, though sentiment remained fragile in Asia as the pound wallowed near 20-month lows on deepening political turmoil over a Brexit deal, reported Reuters.Chinese shares opened in the positive territory with the blue-chip index up 0.3 per cent.
Australian shares gained 0.2 per cent while the Aussie bounced too.
However, that barely helped MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan, which was languishing near a three-week trough.
(With agencies inputs)For the latest News Live Updates on Election Results from each assembly constituency in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Mizoram, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for updates.