Sensex falls; U.S. election jitters rattle global markets

By Reuters |
Nov 02, 2016
Last Updated at 12:27 IST

Indian shares fell more than 1 percent on Wednesday, as signs that the U.S. presidential election was tightening rattled global investors, sending Asian shares to seven-week lows and putting the U.S. dollar on the defensive.

The broader NSE index fell 1.08 percent to8,533.05 as of 0553 GMT, with only six stocks on the index trading higher.

The benchmark BSE Sensex was 0.98 percent lower at 27,603.59, after falling as much as 1.23 percent earlier.

Financial and energy stocks led the losses on both the indexes, with Yes Bank, Bank of Baroda, Bharat Petroleum Corp and Oil and Natural Gas Corp among the top percentage losers.

NSE's volatility index, or the fear gauge, rose as much as 8.39 percent to its highest in about a month.

In Asia, markets were beginning to rethink their long-held bets of a victory for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton amid signs her Republican rival Donald Trump could be closing the gap, forcing money out of riskier assets and into safe-havens such as the Japanese yen and gold.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan dropped 1.2 percent, while Japan's Nikkei fell 1.5 percent.

Overnight on Wall Street, the U.S. S&P 500 Index fell to a four-month closing low, while the Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.6 percent and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.7 percent. [.N]

"Weak global markets and concerns over the U.S. elections, which is impacting global markets, have also affected our markets this morning. There aren't any major domestic negatives today," said Dipen Shah, senior vice president, PCG Research at Kotak Securities.

While it was too early to conclude on the implications based on the election results, IT stocks could probably face immediate pressure, Shah said.

Software exporters Tata Consultancy Services fell as much as 1.7 percent, Wipro lost as much as 1.81 percent while Infosys was lower by as much as 0.94 percent.

The Nifty IT index dropped more than 1 percent to its lowest in more than two years.

(Reporting by Tanvi Mehta in Bengaluru; Editing by Biju Dwarakanath)