Indian shares fell 3.87 percent Monday, as banking stocks slid on concerns of more writedowns across the globe while traders waited for the US Congress to pass the Wall Street bailout. The BSE benchmark 30-share Sensex index closed down 506.43 points at 12,595.75, retracing from a 16-month intraday low of 12,402.84 hit in late afternoon trade.
"We advise investors to trade very cautiously as global trends are just too weak, said Alex Mathew, head of research at Geojit Financial services. At Monday's close, Indian shares had fallen nearly 38 percent this year, led by overseas funds selling Indian stocks worth 9.06 billion dollars. During the same period last year, overseas funds bought 11.39 billion dollars' worth of Indian equities.
In Monday's trade, losers led gainers 2,287 to 357 on turnover of 45.79 billion rupees (976 million dollars). India's largest private sector bank ICICI Bank fell 67.95 rupees or 12.11 percent to 493.3 rupees, on global concerns. The ICICI Bank clarified on Monday that its UK operations had no exposure to the US subprime credit, either directly or through credit derivatives.
"Nearly 98 percent of ICICI Bank UK Plc's non-India investment book of 3.5 billion dollars is rated investment grade and above," the bank said on Monday. India's second largest software exporter Infosys Technologies fell 55.75 rupees or 3.85 percent to 1,391.95, after the company said Monday it was evaluating a response to a counter-bid by rival HCL Technologies to buy out British consultancy Axon Group.
In August Nasdaq-listed Infosys said it would buy Axon for 753 million dollars in an all-cash take-over deal, while HCL last week said it has offered more than 800 million dollars for Axon in the bidding war. HCL shares fell 17.15 rupees or 8.05 percent to 195.8. India's largest software exporter TCS fell 56.8 rupees or 8.4 percent to 619.65 on fears of a cut in technology spending due to the ongoing global financial crisis.
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