Sensex crashes - falls over 1700 pts

The stock market benchmark Sensex today crashed by over 1700 points within minutes of opening, prompting suspension of trade for an hour a fallout of regulator Sebi's move to curb Foreign Institutional Investors.

The 30-share index, Sensex, tumbled to 17,307.90, a fall never seen before.

The fall forced the trading to be suspended for one hour on BSE.

The fall comes days after Finance Minister P Chidambaram expressed surprise at rising stock prices and hoped for things to cool down.The Finance Minister said that the SEBI’s proposed move to impose partial restrictions on investment through offshore derivative instruments, including participatory notes (PNs), equity linked notes and capped return notes - the key instruments used by foreign institutional investors (FIIs) to invest in India – were only meant to moderate capital inflows.

The National Stock Exchange's wide-based index Nifty also plunged 9.25 per cent to 5,658.90 points today.

Trading at India's stock exchanges was halted for one Hour after the benchmark index plunged eight per cent in early trading as the market regulator moved to curb buying by foreign funds.

Experts say that Markets are getting stabilized