Crack in HDFC; blood on Street

Record single-day selling by foreign investors mauls HDFC Bank; indicators point to more volatility ahead

- Ram Sahgal

A collapse in the shares of HDFC Bank Ltd brought the broader market to its knees on Wednesday, inflicting a ₹4.6 trillion loss on investors as key indices fell the most in 19 months. Provisional data from BSE showed that foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold ₹10,578.13 crore worth of shares, the highest in a day, pulling down the Nifty and the Sensex by over 2%.

HDFC Bank, India’s largest private lender with the highest weight in the indices, contributed to over a fifth of the day’s total wealth erosion. The bank’s shares plunged 8.46% on BSE, erasing ₹1.07 trillion of value. The decline, the lender’s biggest fall in three years and 10 months, came after a mixed bag of earnings the previous day, with net interest income falling below market expectations.

The steep fall pushed indices below important technical levels; unless indices cross their record highs scaled recently, investors may sell every time the market rises, analysts said.

Wednesday’s FPI selling was partly absorbed by domestic institutional investors, who purchased a provisional ₹4,006.44 crore, and retail/high net-worth investor buying of ₹34 crore till 12 noon, according to BSE.