Another black friday - Sensex below 9000, down 900 pts

The markets refused to relent despite the finance minister's appeal to investors to take informed decisions and not sell in panic.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram said the RBI's policy decision to keep rates steady was on expected lines. He said the RBI would infuse liquidity and if required, would adopt conventional and unconventional tools.

Chidambaram said, RBI will continue to manage financial price stability along with sustainable growth. He asked investors to remain calm and not resort to panic selling in the market. At 1:25 pm, Bombay Stock Exchange's Sensex slumped 776.19 points to 8995. The index plummeted to a low of 8,940.48 in trade so far.

National Stock Exchange's Nifty tumbled 8.48 per cent or 249.7 points to 2693.45. The low, so far, was 2661.45.

Among frontline stocks, Hindalco Industries (-19.15%), Mahindra & Mahindra (-12.07%), Tata Motors (-12.05%), Tata Steel (-11.78%) and Reliance Infrastructure (-10.52%) were under severe pressure.

There were no gainers in the 30-share index. Market breadth was extremely negative with 2095 declines outnumbering 335 advances