Indian market plummets after second halt

By Margarita Snegireva. Indian shares pared opening losses of 11.5 percent as the market resumed trade after a halt on Tuesday, cutting their fall to as little as 3.05 percent, but then faltered again as sentiment remained negative.

Trading on The Bombay Stock Exchange was halted for 1 hour after the sharp fall in opening deals triggered automatic circuit breakers.

During the halt, Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said the fundamentals of the Indian economy, Asia's third largest, were sound and said investors should stay calm.

The 30-share BSE Sensex tumbled 2,029.05 points to 15,576.30 within minutes of start of trading. The plunge wiped out more than Rs6 trillion from investors' wealth. The was on top of over Rs11 trillion loss suffered by investors in the last six days.

The market witnessed a record heavy selling on Monday as Sensex shed a whopping 1,408 points, the biggest single-day loss to 17,605.35, amid stock market collapse worldwide on growing concerns over increasing credit crunch and an impending US recession.

Similarly, the wider National Stock Exchange index Nifty plunged 12.10% or 639.30 points to 4,569.50 shortly after the open on Tuesday.

Foreign institutional investors sold shares worth almost US$84 Million on Tuesday according to provisional data. Market players said Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, hit by mortgage-related losses in the US , were believed to be aggressive sellers during the day.

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