The Indian equity market is witnessing a mild downturn, with the benchmark index declining for the fifth straight day to a near four-week low.
The BSE Sensex on Monday tanked 417 points intraday before closing at 31,626.63, down 296 points. On the other hand, NSE Nifty 50 Index slipped 91 percent or 0.92 percent to 9,872.60.
The NSE Nifty Bank index fell for the fifth day in a row and hit a 1-month low on Monday, declining as much as 1.45 percent to touch 24,015 points.
The corrections have been triggered by a series of factors such as GST impact on domestic market, subdued consumer spending, weak global cues, continues FPI outflows, muted growth forecast and because of growing global uncertainties.
"Clearly both the initiatives (GST and demonetisation) had a more severe impact than what we have imagined. The negative impact is more in wholesale businesses in rural areas along with small and medium-sized industries. And, this is worrying," Harsh Mariwala chairman of Marico told BloombergQuint.
Recently, R Shankar Raman, chief financial officer (CFO) of Larsen and Toubro (L&T), opined that the government's preparedness for rolling out tax reforms was nowhere close to what was claimed and this found reflection in the slipping GDP growth numbers.
In an interview with Mint last week, Raman said, "...this pain is going to continue for another six to nine months, and consequently, working capital is going to get blocked. In fact, I don't see the private sector coming back for the next couple of years."
On the global front, uncertainties keep putting pressure on emerging stock markets. The US Fed's hawkish monetary policy stance and decision to begin its balance-sheet reduction programme from October 2017, a sharp depreciation in the rupee over the past two weeks and increasing tensions in the Korean peninsula are pushing investors away from the market.
Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) have been net sellers form the past two months. As on September 25, they pulled Rs 4,511 crore out of the Indian equity market and in August they pulled out a whopping Rs 12,770 crore, according to NSDL data.
