Sensex @ a 20 month low

The sensex took another tumble in a late selloff due to weak global cues, closing 267 points lower at 24,188, a 20-month closing low. It's now just 282 points above the level of May 15, 2014, the day before the Narendra Modi-led alliance won a thumping majority in the last Lok Sabha elections. The very next day , the sensex had surged more than 1,000 points in early trades to rise above the 25,000 mark for the first time, marking the beginning of an expectation-led buoyancy in the stock markets.
What's more, the current sensex level is also just 168 points short of entering the bear market territory . Marketmen consider a 20% slide in the benchmark index from its peak as the entry point to a bear market region. From its March 4, 2015 peak of 30,025 points, the sensex has lost 19.4% to its Monday close, and the bear territory for the index is below 24,020.
The year’s selloff so far has left investors poorer by nearly Rs 9 lakh crore, with BSE’s market capitalisation now at Rs 91.1 lakh crore.
Monday’s slide was led by strong selling from foreign investors, which also pulled the rupee down by 8 paise to 67.69.
With a Rs 1,200-crore net selling by foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) on Monday, the total net outflow by this powerful group of investors in 2016 is now nearly $850 million (about Rs 5,700 crore). Institutional dealers, however, said that it's mainly the global nervousness which is pulling all markets around the world down and it's not specific to India. A 391-point crash in Dow Jones index on Friday night also weighed on the Indian market, although on Monday the Chinese market was relatively quiet and the Shanghai index, which is already in a bear territory , closed flat.
Among the sensex stocks, RIL, which was cushioning the fall in the index in the last few sessions, lost the most on Monday , closing 5.1% down. Along with RIL, other top laggards were Bajaj Auto, down 3.7%, and Asian Paints, which lost 3.3%. Of the 30 sensex stocks, 19 ended in the red. Of the gainers, BHEL was up 4.3% and Tata Steel gained 2.8%.