Market bleeds, Sensex holds 35,500, down 378 points

Markets plunge on negative global cues. Metals, Media and Auto stocks act as the biggest draggers. Index heavyweights like HDFC, Reliance and L&T pull down the benchmark index BSE Sensex by 377.81 points, on Thursday.

On the Nifty50, the advance-decline ratio was in favour of bears, 8 stocks advanced and 42 stocks declined. Eicher Motors, HPCL, ONGC, Indiabulls Housing Finance, IOC, UltraTech Cement and M&M lost the most. While on Sensex, M&M, ONGC, Vedanta, Tata Steel, L&T and HDFC caused the most damage by losing 3 to 2 per cent.

Index	Closing level	Gain/ Loss Points	Gain/ Loss (%)
BSE Sensex	35513.71	-377.81	-1.05%
Nifty 50	10672.25	-120.25	-1.11%
Nifty Media	2491.7	-48.8	-1.92%
Nifty Metal	2960.4	-68.05	-2.25%
Nifty Auto	8767.35	-135.3	-1.52%
Nifty Bank	26959.85	-214.85	-0.79%

Global cues emanating from a slowdown in China's economy and the overall global economy is seen as the major cause. Also, this being an election year, the fear of populist measures being doled out by the government seems to have spooked the market.

Government is mulling policy to strengthen the Kisan Credit Card Loan Scheme and widen the scope of crop insurance to provide relief to the agricultural community, said news reports on Thursday.