The stock market plunged on Monday morning as investor caution increased ahead of the US presidential elections and the upcoming Federal Reserve interest rate decision. By 11:45 am, the Sensex had dropped over 1,000 points, while the Nifty fell below 24,000. Key laggards included Reliance Industries, Sun Pharma, Infosys, and Tata Motors, though Mahindra & Mahindra, Tech Mahindra, and HCL Technologies posted gains.
October was the worst month for foreign investment outflows, with Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloading over ₹90,000 crore in equities. Data revealed a sell-off of ₹211.93 crore on Friday. Despite this, other Asian markets like Seoul, Shanghai, and Hong Kong opened higher, and US markets ended last week in the green.
On Friday, the markets were closed for regular hours but opened for a special Diwali Muhurat session in the evening, during which the Sensex rose 335 points to 79,724 and the Nifty gained 99 points to close at 24,304.