Sensex crashes 700 points in late-afternoon trade, Nifty below 11,000

The BSE Sensex tanked 713.50 points to 36,767.62 in late-afternoon trade on Thursday, while the NSE Nifty dived 222.80 points to 10,889.55, led by a sharp sell-off in auto, banks, and metal stocks. In the Sensex pack, Vedanta took the biggest hit (5.81 per cent), followed by Tata Motors, SBI, Yes Bank, Bharti Airtel and Infosys, sliding up to 5.53 per cent. On the global front, the US Federal Reserve reduced the benchmark lending rate by 25 basis points to 2.0-2.25 per cent on Wednesday for the first time in more than a decade.

However, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the move was not the beginning of a long series of rate cuts, sending global markets lower. Domestic sentiment was also hit after official data showed that growth of eight core industries dropped to 0.2 per cent in June, mainly due to contraction in oil-related sectors as well as cement production.