The stock market fell sharply today as heavyweights — led by Bharti Airtel, Reliance Energy and ICICI Bank — faced selling pressure. Banking, FMCG and power stocks were worst hit on Tuesday’s fall.The 30-share BSE Sensex fell 477 points, or 2.30 per cent, to close at 20,251.09. The Sensex was down by 524 points at one stage. The broader CNX S&P Nifty was down 132.55 points, or 2.14 per cent, to 6074.25.The slide on the bourses was attributed to the liquidity drain from the secondary market as the large initial public offering (IPO) of Reliance Power opened for subscription on Tuesday. Asian markets, which opened before Indian markets, were mostly in the red. European markets, which opened after Indian markets, too, were in the red.Investors were also rattled by global jitters ahead of US bank earnings and recession worries in the world’s largest economy. “Persistent weakness in global markets is having an impact on our markets as well,” said K K Mital, a fund manager at Escorts Asset Management in New Delhi. “There are some fears that results of big US companies are not going to be comfortable. This might have some impact on liquidity flows into India in the near to medium term.”Asian markets opened higher, backed by the strong close in US markets overnight, but most of the indices declined as the day proceeded weighed down by export oriented shares as the dollar depreciated against local currencies. Key benchmark indices in Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and China were down 0.98 per cent to 2.38 per cent.The BSE Mid-Cap index fell 1.10 per cent and the Small-Cap index fell 0.83 per cent to 12,755.29.
