Sensex plunges 536 points, Nifty breaches 11,000 mark

Indian shares fell more than 1 percent and ended lower for a fifth straight session on Monday, dragged by financials such as Indiabulls Housing Finance Ltd and Housing Development Finance Corp Ltd as investors continued to trim exposure to non-banking financial companies.

The broader Nifty 50 index was trading at 11,007.25, down 135.85 points, or 1.22 percent. The Nifty Auto index also fell 3.7 per cent due to a fall in Mahindra & Mahindra and Eicher Motors.

The 30-share index was trading lower at 36,378.14 showing a loss of 463.46 points, or 1.26 percent at 1200 hrs. The Nifty MidCap slumped 2.71 percent, shedding almost 500 points, while the BSE MidCap tanked 2.41 percent.

Shares of Dewan Housing Finance Corporation rebounded almost 25 per cent to Rs 438.75 after the company stated that it had not defaulted on any bonds or repayment nor had there been any single instance of delay on any of its repayment of any liability.

"There are liquidity concerns. financial stocks led the rally and now they are dragging the markets and it has a domino effect on sectors such as real estate and autos", said AK Prabhakar, head of research at IDBI Capital. PSU Bank and PVT Bank declined by up to 2.4 percent each.

Bajaj Finance, Indiabulls Housing Finance, Reliance Home Finance, Central Bank of India, Cholamandalam Investment and Finance Company and Ujjivan Financial Services were down in the range of 5 per cent to 15 per cent on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) in intra-day trade.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell nearly 1 per cent. Hong Kong was the worst performer with its Hang Seng index down 1.7 per cent.

Global cues were also hit as United States and China imposed fresh tariffs on each other's imports and called off trade talks.