Bitter pill for Dalal Street: Sensex slides 733 pts

MUMBAI: Fresh tariff-related jitters, weakness of the rupee and foreign fund selling pulled the sensex down by 733 points on Friday to 80,246 points, near its four-week low. As US President Donald Trump announced a fresh set of tariffs on imports of pharmaceutical products, most pharma stocks closed deep in the red.

Nifty was down 236 points at 24,655 points. For both the indices, this was the sixth consecutive session of slide since their recent multi-month highs on Sept 18. The day’s fall came on the back of strong selling by foreign portfolio investors with the day’s net outflow at nearly Rs 5,700 crore, BSE data showed.According to Prashanth Tapse of Mehta Equities, risk-off sentiment continued in the market, reflecting in across-the-board selling. “Trump’s decision to impose 100% tariff on branded & patented drugs further soured investors’ sentiment. The market is already reeling under multiple pain-points like strong FII selling, US-India trade uncertainty, depreciating rupee and bullion’s rising appeal, which is making investors jittery,” Tapse wrote in a note to investors.At close of trading, investors were poorer by about Rs 6.8 lakh crore with BSE’s market cap at Rs 450.6 lakh crore, data showed. Rupee closed slightly off its low at 88.72 against dollar.