The special Budget-day trading session on Sunday proved a painful one for the markets, which were left shell-shocked by the hike in Securities Transaction Tax (STT) on derivatives. This led to a sharp sell-off that pulled the sensex down by over 1,500 points — its biggest points loss on a Budget day — to close at 80,723 points. It also left investors poorer by Rs 9.4 lakh crore, the biggest Budget-day loss in BSE’s market capitalisation.

Sensex suffers its worst B-Day loss in points

The day’s trading was marked by high volatility. The sensex rallied over 400 points as FM started her speech, fell about 1,100 points after the STT hike proposal was announced, partially recovered by mid-session to trade 600 points down on the day and then dropped again to close below the 81k mark for the first time in four months.On the NSE, Nifty too treaded a similar path to close 495 points (2%) lower at 24,825 points.